Plants perennial; cespitose, not rhizomatous. Culms 65-400 cm, erect; nodes pilose. Sheaths papillose-hirsute (upper sheaths sometimes glabrous); ligules 1-4.5 mm; blades 30-50 cm long, 10-23 mm wide, flat, with long hairs behind the ligules, otherwise glabrous or puberulent adaxially. Panicles terminal, with (6)15-44 racemosely arranged branches; branches 5-13 cm, straight, spreading to reflexed, rarely merely divergent; branch axes 0.3-0.4 mm wide, narrowly winged, glabrous, margins scabrous, pubescent, terminating in a spikelet. Spikelets 2-2.5 mm long, 1.8-1.9 mm wide, paired, divergent to spreading from the branch axes, elliptic, brown to stramineous, often purple-tinged. Lower glumes usually absent, if present, to 0.9 mm, triangular; upper glumes smooth, papillose-hirsute, 3-veined; lower lemmas smooth, papillose-hirsute or glabrous, 3-veined; upper florets white. 2n = 20, 40, 60.

Paspalum coryphaeum is native from Costa Rica and the Caribbean south to northern South America. In the Flora region, it grows in disturbed habitats at scattered southeastern locations.