Japan Flora: Plant pale green, sometimes rubescent; basal stems slender, shallowly creeping, unbranched at base, branched on upper part, 0.5-0.7 mm. across, whitish, with ovate scarious scales about 1 mm. long; aerial stems 8-20 cm. long, erect from an ascending base, 15-30 cm. long, unbranched in lower half, pinnately much branched above in one plane, flat, frondlike, the branches 3-10 cm. long, 2-2.5 mm. wide, the branchlets 1.5-2 mm. wide, flat, densely leaved; leaves on aerial stems rather loose, all alike in the petiolelike lower part, dimorphic on upper part; leaves of lower plane ovate to broadly so, about 1.5 mm. long, acute, oblique, serrulate-ciliolate at least on the upper side near base, those of the upper plane 1/2-1/3 as long as the lower ones, appressed, ovate, cuspidate, the midrib prominent on upper sideļ¼ bracts uniform, dense, in 4 rows, deltoid- ovate, about 1 mm. long, cuspidate, minutely serrulate toward base. Mountains.
Honshu (Kanto Distr. and westw.), Shikoku, Kyushu; common. s. Korea, Ryukyus, Formosa, and (?) China.