Meadow foxtail has a cylindrical inflorescence with glumes about wide and spikelets about long. The subequal glumes are minutely to densely pubescent and the keels are serrated. Each spikelet is long and consists of two glumes and two florets. The spikelet glumes each have a hook. The glumes are smooth or occasionally slightly scabrous. Each "package" of glumes, lemma and palaea, and grain(s) is known as a spikelet. Both the upper and lower glumes may have apices ranging from blunt to abruptly pointed. The glumes can be smooth or scabrous. Infected florets (especially the outer glumes) become slightly darkened and oily in appearance. Below the florets are two glumes, one long and the other long. On leaf sheaths and glumes pustules rupture the epidermis, giving a ragged appearance. Both the lower and upper glumes lack keels. Lower glumes are oblong and are in length. In "Oryza", two sterile lemma simulate glumes. "Aegilops" is morphologically highly distinct from "Triticum", with rounded rather than keeled glumes.