Culms 20-62 cm tall, 1-1.4 mm thick, usually erect. Ligules of larger cauline leaves 2.6-6.5 mm, truncate or rounded to acute; widest cauline blades 3.4-6(7.2) mm wide. Panicles 5.5-11 cm long, 0.3-1 cm wide, (5.5)6-19 times as long as wide, linear to narrowly elliptic; lowermost branches stiff to flexuous, reflexed to erect at maturity. Spikelets 4.2-6.4 mm; florets 4-6. Lower glumes 0.8-1.6 mm; upper glumes 1-2.1 mm; lemmas 2.3-3.1 mm, obtuse to acute; anthers 0.6-0.8 mm. 2n = 14.

Torreyochloa erecta grows at elevations above 2000 m, in the margins of subalpine and alpine lakes and streams of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade ranges.