Plants perennial; cespitose or rhizomatous. Culms to 100 cm, erect; nodes pubescent. Sheaths pubescent; ligules 0.2-0.5 mm; blades 12-35 cm long, 10-24 mm wide, flat, scabrous, pubescent near the margins, margins usually undulate. Panicles terminal, with 18-50 racemosely arranged branches; branches 0.8-8.9 cm, spreading to diverging, often arcuate; branch axes 0.2-0.5 mm wide, narrowly winged, scabrous, terminating in a spikelet. Spikelets 1.1-1.3 mm long, 0.9-1 mm wide, paired, diverging from the branch axes, ovate, light brown to stramineous. Lower glumes absent; upper glumes and lower lemmas pubescent, 3-veined; upper florets 1.1-1.3 mm, stramineous. Caryopses 0.7-0.8 mm, light brown. 2n = 20, 40, 60.

Paspalum paniculatum is native from Mexico and the West Indies to Argentina. It is now established in Mississippi and southern Florida, growing in disturbed areas.