Plants densely cespitose. Basal rosettes poorly differentiated; blades 1-5 cm, lanceolate, grading into the cauline blades. Culms 5-45 cm, slender, erect or spreading; from a dense tuft of predominantly basal leaves, lower internodes short, upper 3-5 internodes elongate; nodes glabrous or bearded; internodes glabrous or pilose; fall phase with spreading culms and branches arising from near the bases forming a dense, flat tuft. Cauline leaves 2-4; lower cauline sheaths longer than the internodes, mostly glabrous or pilose with ascending hairs, margins finely ciliate; ligules 0.2-2 mm, at low magnification appearing to be membranous and ciliate, at high magnification evidently of hairs that are coherent at the base; blades 1.5-6 cm long, 3-8 mm wide, lanceolate, glabrous or softly pilose, margins with prominent papillose-based cilia, at least basally. Primary panicles short- to long-exserted; rachises and branches often pilose. Spikelets 1.1-2.1 mm, obovoid to broadly ellipsoid, glabrous or pubescent, hairs not papillose-based. Lower glumes 1/3-1/2 as long as the spikelets, acute to obtuse; upper florets 0.8-1.7 mm, ellipsoid, subacute.

Dichanthelium strigosum extends from the southeastern Flora region south into Mexico, the Caribbean, and into northern South America.

The primary panicles are briefly open-pollinated in April or May; the secondary panicles, which are produced from May through November, are cleistogamous. The three subspecies are mostly sympatric and sometimes grow together, with occasional intergradation.