Culms usually more than twice as long as the vegetative shoot leaves. Spikelets 4.4–7(8.5) mm. Lemmas (3)3.5–4.5(6) mm, awns (0.8)2–3(3.5) mm. 2n = 42, 44.
Festuca brachyphylla subsp. brachyphylla is circumpolar in its distribution. In the Flora region, it extends from Alaska to Newfoundland, south in the mountains to Washington in the west and in the high peaks of the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Quebec and New England in the east.