Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennials with slender, short rhizomes.

Stems: Culms erect, tufted, glabrous, 30–50 cm tall.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. Alternate. Blades firm, flat to involute, those of the midculm 10–15 cm long, 2–4 mm wide (when flat), the uppermost reduced. Apex acute, hard. Upper surfaces scabrous; lower surfaces glabrous or nearly so. Margins entire. Sheaths glabrous, longer than internodes, margins tightly overlapping, basal sheaths puberulent; ligule membranous, ca. 1 mm long, erose. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in paniculate inflorescence, ovate, 5-15(-30) cm long 3-7 cm wide, rather loose, the branches ascending to spreading, usually pubescent near base, lower V, of branches without spikelets, rachilla 1.5-2 mm long, silky villous, the hairs extending to tip of lemma, sometimes prolonged into an awn up to 4 mm long; glumes subequal, completely enclosing floret, eventually spreading, 4-6 mm long, apex acuminate and aristate, scabrous; lemma 4-5 mm long, firm, faintly 5-nerved, short-pilose at base, apex hyaline, 4-toothed, the teeth produced into slender awns up to 1 mm long; awn subapical, geniculate, 8-9(-10) mm long, scabrous; palea 3.5-4 mm long, sharply 2-toothed, keels scaberulous, callus laterally pubescent, hairs ca. 0.5 mm long.

Fruit: Caryopsis not seen.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Occurring in open bogs.

Elevation Range: 1,220–2,990 m.