A tufted grass without runners or creeping rhizomes, 30 to 100 cm tall. It is distinguished by the long (7 to 20 mm) awns to its lemmas.

Couch grass (Elymus repens) is usually in a different habitat and lacks the long awns.

Simple spike with 1 spikelet per node.  Spikelet strongly flattened, alternating up the rhachis with the broad flat side against it (unlike Lolium which has spikelets narrow edgewise to the rhachis, and Brachypodium which is slightly flattened, and often narrow edge wise to rhachis.  Lemmas with long awns..

A good image of the plant and its flowering head. A voucher specimen may be required.

Wooded and shaded areas and river banks.

June to August.

Perennial.

Much less frequent than the related Elytrigia repens it is widespread in Britain but less so around the south-east coast of England and the far north of Scotland.

Fairly frequent in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 105 of the 617 tetrads.