Perennial from slender rhizomes; stems very slender, 1-4 dm; blades 1-2 mm wide, shorter than the stem; bract erect or ascending, 1-2(-5) cm; spike 1, 1-2 cm; spikelets distichously arranged, spreading or ascending, crowded, 5-8 mm, 2-5-fld; scales purple-brown, lance-ovate, acute; achene flattened-fusiform, narrowed to the base, long-tapering into the slender beak, 5-6 mm including the beak; bristles 0-6, soon deciduous, shorter than the achene; 2n=40. Salt or brackish shores and marshes; Nf., N.S., N.B. and Que.; shore of Hudson Bay; n. Europe. Fr July-Sept. The Amer. plants have been segregated as var. neogaeus Fernald. (Blysmus r.; Blysmopsis r.)
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
