Japan Flora: Whitish-pubescent, soft perennial; culms slender, 15-40 cm. long, tufted; leaf-blades flat, thin, 5-10 cm. long, 2-4 mm. wide, glaucescent, short-acuminate; ligules 1-2 mm. long; panicles very loose, sometimes nodding, 7」12 cm. long, 5-7 cm. wide, the branches few, geminate, filiform, with few spikelets toward apex; spikelets 2-flowered, about 5 mm. long, flattened, reddish purple, glaucescent, dull; glumes equal, narrowly ovate, folded, acuminate, finely puberulent; lemmas broadly ovate, 2-2.5 mm. long, included, lustrous, awned from the middle, the awn longer than the lemma, twisted and slightly geniculate; anthers short.---- July-Aug. Grassy slopes of alpine regions.

Hokkaido (Mount Taisetsu); very rare. N. Kuriles, Kamchatka, and Aleutians. The typical phase oc­curs in n. Eurasia and N. America.