Japan Flora: Stems long-creeping, subterranean, slender, about 2.5 mm. wide, loosely scaly; branches erect, 15-30 cm. long, simple at base, much branched above, rather loosely to densely leafy; leaves all alike, linear to broadly so, 3-4 mm. long, 0.5-0.7 mm. wide, green, spreading, often incurved at apex, minutely spine­tipped; spikes 1 to several on a branch, solitary and terminal on the branchlets, erect, 2-5 cm. long, the bracts cordate-del­toid, undulate, more or less scarious-margined, with a short cusp at the tip. Damp coniferous woods in mountains.

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu; rather common. s. Kuriles, Sakhalin, Korea, e. Siberia, and N. America.

f. strictum (Milde) D. C. Eaton. Branchlets short, erect; plant with a treelike aspect.            

f. flabellatum (Milde) Takeda. Branchlets obliquely spreading, subflabellate.