Japan Flora: Densely tufted perennial with short rhi­zomes; culms slender, 20-60 cm. long, smooth; leaves mostly radical, the blades filiform, folded, 5-15 cm. long, 0.5-1 mm. wide, smooth, glabrous, acute; ligules 1-1.5 mm. long; panicles very loose and open, nearly as broad as long, 5-12 cm. long, the branches 2- to 3-nate, capillary, spreading, nearly smooth; spikelets lustrous, 2-flowered, 4-6 mm. long, purplish; glumes equal, hyaline toward the margin, acuminate, narrowly ovate, 1-nerved, nearly smooth, glabrous; lemmas ovate, obscurely nerved, slighdy shorter than to as long as the glumes, denticulate at apex, the awn arising near the base, slightly twisted and geniculate, 5-7 mm. long; callus-hairs about 1 mm. long; rachilla-joints appressed-puberulent; anthers 2-2.5 mm. long. July—Aug.  Bare ground of volcanoes and alpine re­gions.

Hokkaido, Honshu (centr. and n. distr. and on Mount Omine in Yamato and Mount Daisen in Hoki), Shikoku, Kyu­shu; common. Alpine and boreal regions of Eurasia and N. America.