30 to 120 cm tall grass forming tufts and spreading by far creeping underground rhizomes. Leaves with sparse long hairs on the upper surface. Inflorescences slender, erect with spikelets 8 to 17 mm close set so that they overlap one another by at least half their length the lemmas are usually awnless.

It can look superficially similar to rye-grasses, 

Inflorescence a spike with stalkless (sessile), flattened spikelets alternating up the rachis with a flat side against it

Cultivated ground, grassland, roadsides and waste areas.

June to August.

Perennial. It is hard to eradicate because of its deep rhizomes, any part of which if cut can re-grow.

Very common throughout Britain.

Very common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 596 of the 617 tetrads.