Tufted perennial 1-6 dm, erect or decumbent at base; blades 6-15 cm נ2-4 mm, no wider than the sheaths, pilose near the base; panicle 4-12 cm, with very slender ascending branches; pedicels 1 mm or less; spikelets stramineous or purple-tinged, somewhat secund, 1.9-2.3 mm, at first lance-ovoid, soon becoming much dilated distally by the enlarged sterile palea; first glume broadly triangular-ovate, a third to half as long as the spikelet; second glume and sterile lemma sharply veined, subequal; sterile palea becoming larger, involute, and indurate in fruit, eventually exceeding the lemma; 2n=18. Wet shores of ponds and streams, mostly on the coastal plain; se. Va. to Fla., Tex., and Mex., n. in the Mississippi Valley to se. Mo. (Steinchisma h.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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