Japan Flora: Perennials with elongate, rather thick rhizomes covered with small scales; culms erect, 80-120 cm. long, glabrous; leaf-blades flat, linear to linear-lanceolate, usually 25-40 cm. long, 1-1.5 cm. wide, pilose or glabrescent, narrowed to the obtuse base; ligules hyaline, 1-1.5 mm. long, brownish; sheaths shorter than the leaf-blades; panicles erect, 15-25 cm. long, the axis and branches terete, smooth, resinously lustrous in life, the branches erect or ascending, to 4-6 cm. long, usually slightly branched, often falsely verticillate; racemes linear, 2—3.5 cm. long, erect, the joints and pedicels 2-3 mm. long, thickened above with a tuft of spreading hairs about 1 mm. long at apex; spikelets narrowly ovate, terete, 4.5-5.5 mm. long, acute, with spreading hairs about 2 mm. long, pale green, awned; glumes rather coriaceous, with raised nerves; awn of fertile Iemma perfect, 7-12 mm. long. Aug.-Oct. Slopes in mountains.
Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu; rather common. Korea, Northeast China, and Siberia.
Russia Flora: Plant 50—120 (150) cm tall, with thick scaly branching rhizomes. Stems with 5—7 nodes, erect, smooth. Sheaths of upper leaves glabrous, often glaucous, of lower — often with long hairs; leaf blades 5—15 mm wide, flat, broadly linear-lanceolate, with prominent whitish midrib, with long hairs, rarely almost glabrous; ligule of upper leaves 0.5—2.5 mm long. Panicle (8) 12—25 cm long, narrowly oblong, compressed, rather dense, with branches breaking into segments at fruiting. Spikelets 4.2—6.5 mm long, with 2 flowers: upper — bisexual fertile, on densely hairy thickened pedicel; lower — staminate, sessile. Glumes equal in length to spikelet, thinly leathery, with prominent veins, with long hairs near base and on back. Lower lemma (of fertile flower) membranous, transparent, deeply bifid at apex, with geniculate twisted awn 7—12 mm long. Anthers 2—3.3 mm long. 2n=40 (Sokolovskaya, Probatova, 1977a).
Dahurian, Upper Zeya, Lower Zeya, Bureya, Ussuri. (Fig. 160). — In open oak forests on rocky slopes, among shrubs, rarely on dry meadows and sandy ridges in river floodplains. VII—IX. — General distribution: Eastern Siberia (southern); Mongolia (northwestern), Japanese-Chinese. — Described from Siberia (probably from vicinity of Irkutsk).