Plants loosely cespitose. Culms 40–100(120) cm, glabrous, erect or slightly decumbent at the base. Sheaths closed for less than 1/3 their length, glabrous, smooth or slightly scabrous, shredding into fibers; collars glabrous, smooth or slightly scabrous; ligules 0.1–0.5(0.7) mm; blades 1.8–6 mm wide, vegetative shoot blades narrower than the cauline blades, flat or loosely conduplicate or convolute, abaxial surfaces glabrous, adaxial surfaces slightly scabrous or pubescent, veins 7–19, ribs obscure to prominent; abaxial sclerenchyma in narrow strands; adaxial sclerenchyma developed; pillars or girders present at the major veins. Inflorescences 10–20 cm, open, with 1–2 branches per node; branches lax, more or less spreading, spikelets borne towards the ends of the branches. Spikelets (7)7.5–11 mm, with 2–6(7) florets. Glumes lanceolate, glabrous, smooth or the apices slightly scabrous, acuminate; lower glumes 2–4 mm; upper glumes 3–4.6 mm; calluses wider than long, smooth or slightly scabrous, glabrous; lemmas 5.5–7 mm, lanceolate, scabrous or puberulent, minutely bidentate, awned, awns (1.5)2–5(8) mm, subterminal, straight to slightly curved or kinked; paleas as long as or longer than the lemmas, intercostal region puberulent distally; anthers (3)3.4–4 mm; ovary apices pubescent. 2n = 28.
Festuca elmeri grows on moist wooded slopes, usually below 300(500) m, from Oregon to south-central California. The more southerly populations, which have larger spikelets with 5–6, rather than 3–4, florets and a more compact inflorescence with more or less erect panicle branches, have been named F. elmeri subsp. luxurians Piper.