Plants perennial; with extensive, often deep, horizontal or vertical rhizomes. Culms 50-130 cm, erect, bases usually buried and rooting at the nodes. Leaves cauline; sheaths shorter than the internodes, open, ribbed; ligules membranous, ciliate; auricles absent; blades loosely involute, sometimes scabridulous, apices attenuate. Inflorescences terminal, conical to oblong panicles, open to diffuse, exceeding the upper leaves; branches slender, widely spreading. Pedicels longer than the spikelets, capillary, flexible. Spikelets ovate to obovate, olive-green to brownish, with (1)2-6 florets; sterile florets distal to the bisexual florets; disarticulation above the glumes and below the florets. Glumes unequal, usually exceeded by the florets, glabrous, acute; lower glumes 1-veined; upper glumes 1- or 3-veined; calluses with a tuft of soft hairs; lemmas lanceolate to falcate, glabrous or shortly pubescent, at least on the distal 2/3, 3-veined, lateral veins converging distally, apices acute to awn-tipped, entire or with 3 minute teeth; anthers 3. x = unknown. Named for John Howard Redfield (1815-1895), a Philadelphia businessman associated with the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences.