Tufted and erect to 150 cm tall. With broad (6 to 16 mm) drooping, hairy leaves. Stems are erect and hairy, bearing loose, nodding panicles 15 to 40 cm long, their drooping branches arising in pairs each bearing 5 to 9 spikelets which are 20 to 40 mm long, linear and compressed.

Schedonorus (Festuca) gigantea and Brachypodium sylvaticum are superficially similar plants that grow in woodlands and shaded places

Leaf-sheaths have pointed auricles; lower sheaths with long soft down-pointed hairs; panicle with pendent branches when mature

Photograph all the plant, including leaf-sheaths and panicle - it can't be verified from a picture of the flowers alone

Woods and shaded places on richer soils.

July and August.

Perennial.

Common nationally, particularly in the south and east of England, less common in the north and west.

Common in Leicestershire and Rutland. In the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire it was found in 421 of the 617 tetrads.