Plants annual; cespitose or rhizomatous. Culms 40-90 cm, erect; nodes purple. Sheaths glabrous; ligules 0.1-0.3 mm; blades 4-13 cm long, 10-22 mm wide, flat, glabrous. Panicles terminal, with 40-75 racemosely arranged branches; branches 1-2.5 cm, divergent to erect; branch axes 1-1.5 mm wide, terminating in a pedicellate spikelet. Spikelets 2.5-2.9 mm long, 0.8-1.2 mm wide, paired, appressed to or divergent from the branch axes, linear-elliptic, pubescent, stramineous or purplish. Lower glumes absent; upper glumes and lower lemmas rugose, shortly ciliate; lower lemmas lacking ribs over the veins; upper florets 1.3-1.6 mm, stramineous, oblong elliptic, pale, shiny. Caryopses white. 2n = unknown.

Paspalum racemosum is native to Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. Within the Flora region, it is known from disturbed sites at a few widely scattered locations.