Plants densely cespitose, not rhizomatous. Culms 60–200 cm, not forming corms, often branched from the lower nodes; internodes smooth. Sheaths glab-rous, sometimes scabridulous, sometimes purplish; ligules 2.5–9 mm; blades 2–5 mm wide, abaxial sufaces scabridulous, adaxial surfaces puberulent. Panicles 12–40 cm; branches 3.5–9 cm, appressed, with 5–15 spikelets; pedicels straight; disarticulation above the glumes. Spikelets 9–18 mm, with 3–5 bisexual florets; rachilla internodes 1–1.3 mm, not swollen when fresh, not wrinkled when dry. Lower glumes 7–12 mm long, 2–3 mm wide, 5–7-veined; upper glumes 8–15 mm long, 2.5–3.5 mm wide, 5–7-veined; lemmas 8–11 mm, glabrous, chartaceous for the distal 1/3 or more, 7–9-veined, sometimes purplish basally, veins incon-spicuous, apices rounded to acute, unawned; paleas about 1/2 the length of the lemmas; anthers 3, 1–2 mm; rudiments 2–6 mm, blunt, enclosed in empty lemmas resembling those of the bisexual florets. 2n = 18.
Melica frutescens grows from 300–1500 m in the dry hills and canyons of southern California, Arizona, and adjacent Mexico. Boyle (1945) stated that its seeds remain viable longer than those of other North American species of Melica; he gave no information on how long.