This is a rare woodland species found in a few of our northern counties and in one southern county. It is usually found in dry soil in beech and sugar maple woods although I have one specimen that was found in a low woods associated with white elm and soft maple.
Culms loosely tufted, slender, 3-10 dm, without rhizomes; sheaths glabrous; lvs thin, soft, 2-4 mm wide, the cauline ones rarely over 10 cm; ligule 0.7-2.2(-3) mm; infl very lax, its branches mostly in 4's and 5's, the larger ones elongate, with 1-few spikelets at the tip; base of the infl tardily exsert from the sheath, the branches therefore persistently ascending; pedicels smooth or scaberulous; spikelets ovate, 2-3-fld, the 2-fld ones 3-4.5 mm, the 3-fld to 5.6 mm; first glume lanceolate, 2.1-3 mm, the second broader, 2.4-3.7 mm; lemmas thin, lance-ovate, acute, faintly 5-veined, 2.5-4.1 mm, glabrous except the webbed base and pubescent lower part of the keel. Moist woods; N.S. and Me. to Minn., s. to Del., Ind., and in the mts. to N.C. and Tenn.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
