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.