Culms slender and weak, 2-6 dm, without rhizomes; sheaths scaberulous; lvs to 10 cm, 1-2 mm wide; ligule truncate, to 1(-1.5) mm; infl lax, 5-15 cm, the slender branches paired, bearing a few spikelets above the middle; spikelets 3.5-4.5 mm, 2-5- fld; glumes lanceolate, scarious-margined, the first 1.7-2.2 mm, the second 2-2.8 mm; lemmas 2.5-3.3 mm, short-villous on the keel and marginal veins, glabrous on the obscure intermediate veins, webbed at base; anthers 0.5-0.7 mm. Bogs and wet woods; N.Y. and Pa. to Wis., Ill., and e. Minn.; rarely collected.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
Only a few specimens of this rare grass have been found, and in widely separated counties. In Lagrange County it grew in tussocks of sphagnum about tamarack and in Dubois County it grew in a swamp in sphagnum about Alnus rugosa.