Plants from loose caudices or with knotty or loose rhizomes. Culms decumbent or sprawling, glabrous, sometimes glaucous, sometimes purplish. Basal blades large, usually 8-14 cm long, 7-22 mm wide. Cauline blades 8-25 mm wide, 4-8 times longer than wide, thin, ovate-lanceolate, often glaucous, strongly asymmetric-falcate. Spikelets 2.9-3.2 mm. Lower glumes about 1/4 as long as the spikelets; lower lemmas pointed.
Dichanthelium commutatum subsp. joorii grows in wet woodlands and swamps. Its range extends into Mexico.