Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Cespitose perennials, ± stoloniferous.

Stems: Culms 20–60 cm tall, unbranched, internodes up to 2 mm in diameter, pithy, glabrous, nodes glabrous or slightly bearded.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades linear, flat or folded, 4–15 cm long, 3–5 mm wide. Apex obtuse. Surfaces papillose–ciliate near base, otherwise glabrous. Margins entire. Sheaths compressed, glabrous except for the ciliate, overlapping margins, inner margin thin; ligule a truncate, ciliolate, fringed membrane 0.3–0.5 mm long. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences 5–11 cm long, composed of 2–7 divergent racemes on a short common rachis, racemes slender, 3.5–5 cm long, rachis trigonous, ca. 0.5 mm in diameter, scabrous on angles, peduncles exserted up to 16 cm from terminal sheath; spikelets subsessile, imbricate, elliptic obovate, 2.3–2.8 mm long, acute, pedicels less than 0.2 mm long, sparsely pubescent on margins of glume and sterile lemma and at apex; second glume and first (sterile) lemma equal, 2–nerved, nerves submarginal; fertile floret pale yellowish brown. Stamens usually 3. Ovary superior.

Fruit: Caryopsis tan to pale brown; compressed ellipsoid to lenticular; 1.4–1.8 mm long.

Ploidy: 2n = 20; 40; 50; 54; 60; 80

Habitat: Naturalized and common in wet pastures; disturbed wet forest; and bogs.

Elevation Range: 160–1,220 m.