Plants perennial; cespitose. Culms 80-110 cm, erect; nodes glabrous. Sheaths glabrous, sparsely pubescent apically; ligules 1-2.9 mm; blades to 62 cm long, 3-7 mm wide, mostly involute, pubescent above, glabrous below. Panicles terminal, with 3-15 racemosely arranged branches; branches 5.2-12.5 cm, divergent to spreading, terminating in a spikelet; branch axes 0.3-0.8 mm wide, very narrowly winged, scabrous. Spikelets 2.2-2.5 mm long, 1-1.3 mm wide, paired, appressed to the branch axes, elliptic to obovate, white to light stramineous. Lower glumes absent; upper glumes glabrous, 5-veined; lower lemmas glabrous, 3-veined; upper florets 1.4-2 mm, white to stramineous. Caryopses 1-1.6 mm, suborbicular, brown. 2n = unknown.

Paspalum pleostachyum grows in sandy soil or rocky areas in Florida, the West Indies, and from northern South America to Brazil. It is usually found along the coast.