General:
Perennial grass from fibrous roots and rhizomes; stems 30-90 cm tall, unbranched, with 2 to 3 nodes.

Leaves:
Leaf blades 5-15 cm long, 2-4 mm wide, flat or in-rolled, rough short-hairy above, smooth below; ligules 1.5-4 mm long, entire.

Flowers:
Inflorescence a lax panicle 4-12 cm long, its branches up to 4 cm long and appressed to somewhat spreading; spikelets 1-flowered; glumes 4-5.5 mm long, thin, long-pointed, rough, at least on the keels, usually purplish below, often becoming bronze-coloured at the tips; lemmas 3.5-5 mm long, finely rough short-hairy, translucent at the summits, the awns slender, straight to somewhat twisted and bent, reaching the tips of the lemmas, the callus hairs somewhat tufted, of varying length, mostly as long as the lemmas; paleas slightly shorter than the lemmas, thin and translucent; rachillas about 1 mm long, with copious hairs reaching the tips of the lemmas; anthers usually poorly developed and sterile.

Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

If more than one illustration is available for a species (e.g., separate illustrations were provided for two subspecies) then links to the separate images will be provided below. Note that individual subspecies or varietal illustrations are not always available.

Illustration Source:  The Illustrated Flora of British Columbia

Synonyms and Alternate Names:
Calamagrostis lapponica var. alpina Hartm.
Calamagrostis lapponica var. groenlandica Lange
Calamagrostis lapponica var. nearctica A.E. Porsild