Japan Flora: Stems long-creeping, loosely leafy; branches erect from an ascending base, forked below and becoming flabellate or bushlike, 4-10 cm. long, the branchlets slighdy flattened, 2.5-3.5 mm. wide; leaves rather densely disposed in 4 rows, lanceolate-subulate, acutish with a short hyaline tip, the lateral ones more or less flattened, strongly incurved on margin, as­cending, the dorsal leaves shorter, convex on back, appressed, the ventral ones trowel-shaped or subulate; spikes 1-2 cm. long, few on each branch, nearly equal in height, sessile; bracts as­cending, narrowly deltoid-ovate, hyaline and subentire on margin, acutish. Alpine slopes.

Hokkaido, Honshu (centr. mountains); rare. Sakhalin, Kuriles, Kamchatka to Siberia and Europe and N. America.

Russia Flora: Plant up to 10 cm tall. Creeping stems submerged in the substrate, almost devoid of phyllodia, long. Vertical stems ascending, dichotomously branched below, crowded in a fan-like manner above, somewhat flattened, 2.5-3.5 mm wide. Phyllodia fused with the axis for most of their length, decussate (cross-paired), densely arranged in 4 rows, heterogeneous, lanceolate-acicular, with hyaline apex. Dorsal phyllodia convex, 4 mm long, 0.7 mm wide; lateral ones — more or less flattened, 4 mm long, 1 mm wide, with margins curling to the ventral side; ventral ones — 2.5 mm long, 0.8 mm wide. Strobiloids few, sessile, 1-2 cm long, somewhat wider than the branches. Sporophylloids oblong-ovate, 3 mm long, with elongated apex, narrowly membranous along the margin, fringed, with sparse spinules. Sporangium indistinctly reniform, 0.6 mm long.

Apparently in all regions, except Anadyr. Herbarium specimens from Nyukzha not seen. (Fig. 8). — In tundra and sparse forests, on dry, well-drained areas, with accumulating snow in winter, from lowlands to the alpine belt; avoids carbonate rocks. VII-VIII. — General distribution: European part, Caucasus, Central Asia (Saur), Western and Eastern Siberia; Scandinavia, Central Europe, Mongolia, Japan-China, North America.