It is native to the United States and southern Canada, and it is known from northern Mexico.

It is a grass of many types of habitat, and it grows easily in dry areas with sandy or gravelly soils.

It appears in disturbed and burned areas and is sometimes a weed of roadsides and railroads.

This is an annual forming clumps of branching gray-green and purple-tinted stems about 30 to 70 centimeters tall.

The grain has three spreading awns, the central one reaching up to 7 centimeters long and the other two slightly shorter.