Japan Flora: Stems long-creepi ng, leafy; branches ascending, somewhat forked at base, erect, to 20 cm. long, densely leafy, 8-13 mm. across; leaves of sterile branches spreading to subreflexed, 4-7 mm. long, 0.6-1.3 mm. wide, with an incurved tip, toothed, obso- letely costate on both sides, with a pungent awnlike tip; spikes solitary, terminal on the branchlets, 2.5-4 cm. long, 4-5 mm. across, sessile, erect; bracts dense, broadly deltoid-ovate, abrupdy acuminate with a short deciduous filiform tip, the margins erose-dentate, more or less hyaline. Coniferous woods:

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu; rather common. Kuriles, Sakhalin, Kamchatka, Korea to China and the Himalayas, Siberia to Europe, and N. America.  

var. pungens Desv. Leaves as­cending, about 0.5-0.7 mm. wide, incurved at the tip, nearly entire. 

var. latifolium Takeda. Leaves horizontally to obliquely spreading, lanceolate, usually more than 1 mm. wide, slightly incurved at tip. 

var. angustatum Takeda. Leaves reflexed, linear-lanceolate, about 1 mm. wide or sometimes narrower.

Russia Flora: Plant up to 20 cm tall. Creeping stems long, with loosely arranged spreading phyllodia. Vertical branches slightly branched, straight, arcuately curved or largely sinuous, densely covered with spreading or somewhat downward-deflected phyllodia. Phyllodia rather rigid, up to 7 mm long, 0.8 mm wide, with sparsely serrated edge, pointed, some in young state with colorless hair-like awns. Veins almost not visible. Strobiloids solitary, sessile, up to 3 cm long, 4-5 mm wide. Sporophylloids broadly deltoid-oval, with wavy irregularly toothed broadly membranous margin. Sporangia short reniform, about 1 mm long.

In all regions. In Chukotka very rare and represented only in the southern subregion. No herbarium specimens from Anadyr (Fig. 6). — In forests in taiga and forest-tundra zones, rarely under the canopy of dwarf cedar and alder thickets, from lowlands to the subalpine belt. VII-IX. — General distribution: European part, Caucasus, Western and Eastern Siberia; Scandinavia, Atlantic and Central Europe, Mediterranean, Mongolia, Himalayas, Japan-China, North America.