General: Perennial grass from conspicuous rhizomes, freely rooting; stems erect to more or less decumbent, hollow, 80-150 cm tall/long.
Leaves: Sheaths somewhat flattened, smooth, open for 1-4 cm; blades (2) 3-5 (6) mm wide, flat or folded, more or less pimpled on the upper surfaces; ligules pointed, entire but usually splitting, minutely hairy, (4) 5-10 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence a narrow panicle, 18-50 cm long, the branches ascending-appressed; spikelets mostly 6- to 11-flowered, linear, tapered at the tips, 10-12 (15) mm long; lower glumes (1.5) 2-2.5 mm long, the upper ones slightly over 3 mm long; lemmas prominently 7-nerved to the narrow, translucent upper margins, 3-4 mm long, smooth, minutely rough on the nerves; stamens 3; anthers 0.5-1 mm long.
Swamps, lakeshores and wet meadows (often in water up to 1 m deep) in the lowland and montane zones; frequent in SW BC, infrequent in SC BC; N to AK and YT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, PA, IN, IA, SD, NM, AZ and CA.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
