General: Perennial, usually strongly tufted grass from rhizomes; stems erect to more or less decumbent, hollow, up to (20) 30-80 (100) cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths somewhat flattened, minutely rough, the hairs directed backwards, usually closed to the tops and often split; blades 2-5 (6) mm wide, flat or folded, mostly erect, minutely rough; ligules cut off at the ends to blunt, usually closed in the front unless split, minutely rough, the margins more or less irregularly jagged, 1.5-3 (4) mm long, the lower leaf ligules mostly 1-3 mm long.
Flowers: Inflorescence a loose panicle, 7-20 cm long, the slender branches usually ascending; spikelets mostly (3-) 4- to 7-flowered, egg-shaped, about 3.8 mm long and 1.5 mm wide; glumes egg-shaped, usually more or less fringed with fine hairs, the margins more or less jagged, usually rounded to blunt, the lower ones 0.6-1.5 mm long, the upper ones about 0.9-2.3 mm long; lemmas broad, firm, barely 2 mm long, prominently 7-nerved, smooth or minutely rough on the nerves, the marginal nerves less conspicuous; paleas abruptly notched, the slits narrow, concealed by the lemmas; stamens 2; anthers 0.4-0.6 mm long.
Bogs, lakeshores and moist to wet meadows in the lowland to subalpine zones; common in S BC south of 55 degrees N, infrequent northward, absent on the Queen Charlotte Islands; N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, PA, NC, FL, MS, LA, TX, 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)
