Japan Flora: Dioecious perennial herb with long creeping rhizomes; stems erect, 60-100 cm. long, sparingly branched, glabrescent to slightly appressed- pilose; leaves rather thick and firm, lanceolate, 7-12 cm. long, 1-2 cm. wide, acuminate at both ends, strigose above especially toward the margin and on the nerves beneath, the lateral nerves 15 to 25 pairs, the petioles very short; sheaths tubular, nerved, truncate at apex, membranous, with rather firm bristly cilia 8-15 mm. long; spikes terminal, few to several, linear or narrowly cylindric, 7-12 cm. long, nodding, loosely to rather densely many-flowered, the pedicels distinct, the perianth white, sometimes greenish below in frnit, 3-4 mm. long; stamens shorter than the style in pistillate flowers; styles 2 or 3; achenes lenticular or compressed-trigonous, lustrous, elliptic-ovate, 2-2.5 mm. long. Aug.-Oct. Wet grassy places in lowlands;

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu; rather common. s. Korea, Ryukyus, and China.