Plants 0.03-0.15 m, (dwarf), forming clones by layering. Stems prostrate, long-trailing; branches yellow-brown, red-brown, or green-brown, glabrous; branchlets yellow-green or yellow-brown to red-brown, (sometimes weakly glaucous), glabrous, (inner membranaceous bud-scale layer free, not separating from outer layer). Leaves: stipules rudimentary, absent, or foliaceous on early ones, foliaceous or rudimentary on late ones; petiole 3-7.8-15 mm; largest medial blade hypostomatous or hemiamphistomatous, elliptic, obovate, broadly elliptic, broadly obovate, subcircular, or oblanceolate, 15-31-60 × 6.5-16-35 mm, 1.2-3-4.3 times as long as wide, base cuneate, convex, or rounded, margins slightly revolute, inconspicuously crenulate or entire, apex usually acute or convex, sometimes rounded, abaxial surface glaucous, glabrous, adaxial slightly or highly glossy, glabrous; proximal blade margins entire or serrulate; juvenile blade glabrous. Catkins: staminate 19-54 × 7-16 mm, flowering branchlet 4-20 mm; pistillate densely to moderately densely flowered, slender to subglobose, 30-79(-130 in fruit) × 10-20 mm, flowering branchlet 8-57 mm; floral bract brown, black, or bicolor, 0.8-2.4 mm, apex rounded or acute, entire, abaxially densely hairy, hairs straight. Staminate flowers: abaxial nectary absent, adaxial nectary oblong, square, narrowly oblong, or ovate, 0.4-1 mm; filaments distinct or connate less than 1/2 their lengths, glabrous, or hairy on proximal 1/2; anthers ellipsoid or long-cylindrical, 0.5-0.7 mm. Pistillate flowers: abaxial nectary absent, adaxial nectary oblong or narrowly oblong, 0.5-0.9 mm, shorter than stipe; stipe 0.8-1.4 mm; ovary pyriform or obclavate, pubescent or short-silky, (refractive), hairs (white, grayish, or ferruginous), crinkled, often refractive, ribbonlike, beak gradually tapering to styles; ovules 8-16 per ovary; styles connate or distinct 1/2 their lengths, 0.6-1.4 mm; stigmas slenderly or broadly cylindrical, 0.24-0.47-0.72 mm. Capsules 5-9 mm. 2n = 76.
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Trailing shrub; vegetative parts all glabrous; twigs yellowish-brown, sometimes pruinose; buds 3–8 mm; petioles 5–12(–24) mm; lvs elliptic-obovate to obovate (the apical ones rarely obovate-oval and subcordate), 2–4(–5) × 1.5–3 cm, acute to apiculate, shallowly crenate-denticulate toward the tip, dark green and shining above, glaucous beneath, prominently and slenderly raised-reticulate on both sides; catkins after the lvs, 3–9 cm, rather lax, erect on leafy peduncles 1–4 cm; scales blackish, long-villous; stamens 2; staminate fls biglandular; fr slender, 6.5–8 mm, thinly silky; pedicels 0.5–1 mm; style 1–1.5 mm; 2n=76. Marshy, mossy, low places in the mts., or sometimes in drier areas; Mt. Katahdin, Me., n. to Greenl. and Mack. (S. groenlandica)
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