Slender, erect or ascending loosely-tufted annual. Culms to 40 cm high, finely striate, ±2-noded, scaberulous or retrorsely scabrous. Leaves crowded at base of plant; sheaths becoming loose from culms in upper part; ligule to 5 mm long, obtuse, laciniate; blade mostly flat, linear, to 2.5 mm wide. Panicles open, more than twice as long as wide, to 12 cm long, much exserted, few-flowered; branches alternate in groups of 1–6, straight, most spikelets in distal half of branch. Spikelets c. 1.5–2.5 mm long; pedicel (in upper branches) mostly less than 2 mm long, straight. Glumes subequal or lower very slightly longer; lower glume 1.75–2.5 mm long; upper glume 1.5–2.25 mm long. Lemma ovate, 1.3–1.8 mm long, truncate, unawned, 5-nerved, glabrous. Palea minute. Anthers 0.4–0.5 mm long.
Grows in depressions, sod tussock grasslands, and in fens, bogsand wet areas in alpine herbfields, and at the margins of rainforests.
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