This is strictly a woodland species and is infrequent to frequent throughout the state. It is found in moist soil and prefers beech and sugar maple woods, but it is found also in other types of woodland.

Culms erect, 4-8 dm, without rhizomes; lvs soft, mostly cauline, the main ones 3-5 mm wide; ligule 1 mm; infl rather narrow but open, oblong, 1-2 dm, its slender flexuous branches in sets of 4-8, soon divaricate or reflexed, bearing a few spikelets well beyond the middle; spikelets 2-5-fld; glumes scarious-margined, acute, the first lanceolate, 1.5-2.7 mm, the second oblong, 1.9-3.4 mm; lemmas distinctly 5-veined, 2.1-3.5 mm, villous-puberulent on the marginal veins, at least toward the base, and nearly or quite to the tip of the keel, often also between the veins and on the intermediate pair, webbed at base; anthers 1.1-1.4 mm; 2n=28. Moist woods; N.Y. to Wis. and Io., s. to Fla. and Tex.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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