Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Robust perennials, short–rhizomatous.

Stems: Culms erect or sometimes decumbent, 5–20 dm tall, 4–8 mm in diameter.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades flat to involute, firm, 15–20 cm long, 1–3 cm wide, the uppermost reduced. Apex indurate, hard–pointed. Upper surfaces scabrous and plicate; lower surfaces glabrous. Margins membranous, throat sparsely pubescent. Sheaths overlapping rather closely along the middle of the culm, minutely retrorse–scaberulous, ligule membranous to chartaceous, 3.5–4 mm long, puberulent, apex triangular to rounded, erose; blades flat to involute, firm, 15–20 cm long, 1–3 cm wide, the uppermost reduced. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences paniculate, oblong, contracted, 15–30 cm long, densely scabrous, the branches ascending, loosely appressed to axis, devoid of spikelets on lower 1⁄2 of branch, rachilla 1.5–2 mm long, obscured by long whitish yellow silky hairs up to 1 cm long; glumes equal, pale, persistent, longer than floret, spreading, slightly recurved, ca. 7 mm long, scabrous on keel and otherwise scaberulous, apex acuminate, first glume 1–nerved, second glume 3–nerved, nerves green; lemma thin, chartaceous to membranous, 4–4.5 mm long, 5–nerved, nerves green, scabrous, callus thickened, hardened, densely silky pubescent the hairs 4–5 mm long, encircling floret, apex 4–toothed, the teeth slender, midnerve produced into an awn 7–10 mrn long; palea 2.5–3 mm long, 2–nerved, scabrous, acuminate. Ovary superior.

Fruit: Caryopsis pale brown; ovoid; 2–2.5 mm long; slightly grooved ventrally; apex apiculate.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Apparently rare in wet forest; open bogs; and bog margins.

Elevation Range: 950–2,290 m.