General: Perennial, loosely tufted grass from fibrous roots; stems erect, 15-80 cm tall.
Leaves: Smooth to soft hairy, the lower sheaths usually stiff-hairy, the hairs angled backwards; blades flat (rarely in-rolled), 1-8.5 mm wide and up to 30 cm long with prowlike tips; ligules rounded to blunt, the margins often jagged, 0.8-3.5 mm long, the tips fringed with fine hairs.
Flowers: Inflorescence an open panicle, to 20 cm long; spikelets 4-7 mm long with 2 florets; glumes smooth or rough-hairy on the keel and marginal nerves, as long as or longer than the spikelets, the lower glumes 4-5 (6.5) mm long, the upper glumes 4-5.5 (7) mm long; lemmas 1.8-3 mm long, awned, the awns attached on the lower back, 2-4 mm long, the calluses with hairs about 1/2 the lemma length; anthers 0.5-1.2 mm long.
Moist to wet open woods, forest edges, meadows, streambanks and shorelines in the montane to alpine zones; common throughout BC; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to N CO, ID and CA; Greenland, Eurasia, S South America.
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)
A shade-intolerant, subalpine to alpine, circumpolar grass (transcontinental in North America). Occurs in alpine tundra and subalpine boreal climates on fresh to very moist, nitrogen-medium soils. Sporadic in non-forested, heath or graminoid-forb communities on water-shedding and water-receiving sites (springs, streams, and snowbasins). Often associated with Cassiope mertensiana, Leptarrhena pyrotifolia, Phyllodoce empetriformis, and Vaccinium deliciosum. Characteristic of alpine and subalpine communities.
