Plants with hard, knotty, shortly rhizomatous bases. Culms 50-170 cm, stiffly erect. Sheaths rounded, glabrous except for a few hairs on either side of the collar; ligules about 0.5 mm, membranous, ciliate; blades 2-8 mm wide, flat or loosely infolded, glabrous, tapering to the apices. Panicles 10-30(36) cm long, 1-2 cm wide; branches to 6 cm, erect or appressed; pedicels 1-1.5 mm, glabrous. Spikelets 4-7 mm, with 5-11 florets. Glumes 4-7 mm, always conspicuously exceeding and often twice as long as the adjacent lemmas, usually equaling or exceeding the distal florets, glabrous, 1-veined, tapering to acuminate apices; calluses pilose; lemmas (2)3-3.5 mm, veins pilose to well above midlength, lateral veins often excurrent; paleas 2-3 mm, bases not bowed-out; anthers 1-1.5 mm. Caryopses 1-1.5 mm. 2n = 40.

Tridens strictus grows in open woods, old fields, right of ways, and coastal grasslands. It is endemic to the United States.