Japan Flora: Stems elongate and long-creeping, loosely leafy; branches ascending, 10-30 cm. long, usually flabellately ramulose; branchlets much flattened, green, 2-grooved above, 3-4 mm. wide; leaves of sterile branches rather loosely disposed in 4 rows, small, long-decur­rent and adnate to the axis, spinelike at tip, the lateral ones flattened, the free part 1-1.5 mm. long, ascending to subcrect, the dorsal leaves subulate, appressed, adnate most of the length on inner side to the axis, convex on back, the ventral leaves al­most wholly adnate, reduced to a minute appressed subulate tip; peduncles erect, 8-13 cm. long, the leaves loose, linear, ascending, often hyaline at the tip; spikes 2-5 on each peduncle, 2-3 cm. long, pedicelled; bracts deltoid-cordate, with a linear hyaline short tip, erose and membranous on margin. Mountains.

Hokkaido, Honshu (centr. and n. distr.) Ku­riles, Sakhalin, Korea, China, Himalayas, Siberia to Europe, and N. America.