Culms stout, loosely tufted from a purplish, often somewhat decumbent base, 5-15 dm, without rhizomes; lvs 1-2 mm wide; ligule ovate or triangular, 2.5-5 mm; infl declined or nodding, 1-3 dm, fairly open, its branches in sets of ca 5, bearing numerous spikelets at and beyond the middle; spikelets 2-4-fld; glumes lance-ovate, the first 1.9-2.7 mm, the second 2-3.1 mm; lemmas 2.1-3 mm, 3-veined or with an obscure additional pair of veins, webbed at base, hairy on the lower half or two-thirds of the veins, glabrous or scabrous toward the golden tip; rachilla glabrous; anthers 0.8-1.2 mm; 2n=28, 42. Wet meadows and damp soil; circumboreal, s. to Va., Mo., and N.M.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
