Japan Flora: Ckegarious perennial; culms rather stout, 70-180 cm. long, with 6-10 nodes; leaf-blades flat, glaucous-green, scabrous, 20-30 cm. long, 8-15 mm. wide, glabrous; ligules truncate, 2-3 mm. long; panicles 10-15 cm. long, 1-3 cm. wide, erect, very dense, sometimes spikelike, pale green or sometimes slightly purplish, the branches erect or ascending, single or in pairs, the branchlets short, densely spiculose; spikelet 4-5 mm. long, ovate, flattened, appressed to the branchlets, very acute; glumes equal, short-acuminate, folded, scabrous, the keel with a very narrow wing above; florets lanceolate-ovate, 3-35 mm. long, the attached sterile lemmas minute, villous; anthers 1.5-2 mm long. May-June. Wet sunny places. 

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyu­shu; common. Cooler regions of the N. Hemisphere. 

var. picta L. Ribongurasu. Leaves variegated. Some­times cultivated as an ornamental.