Culms few in a tuft, 6-12 dm, smooth; sheaths glabrous or pilose; blades flat, soft, minutely scaberulous on the veins, sometimes pilose, 3-8 mm wide, without auricles; infl long-exsert, 1.5-3 dm, the elongate, slender branches racemiform, eventually widely spreading or deflexed, bearing spikelets only above the middle; spikelets relatively remote, the summit of one scarcely reaching the base of the next, 2-4(5)-fld, 4-8 נ2-4 mm; first glume subulate, carinate, 2.2-3.8 mm, the second ovate, 2.7-4.4 mm; lemmas broadly rounded on the back, obtuse to acute, 2.5-4.7 mm, appressed till maturity; palea acute; anthers 0.8-1.5 mm; ovary hairy at the tip; 2n=42. Moist woods; Que. and N. Engl. to Fla., w. to Man. and Tex. (F. obtusa)

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

©The New York Botanical Garden. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

From Flora of Indiana (1940) by Charles C. Deam

Infrequent to frequent throughout the state in woodland of many kinds, but never common over any considerable area.

......

Indiana Coefficient of Conservatism: C = 4

Wetland Indicator Status: FACU

Deam (1929): The surface of the sheaths, culms, and blades of this species is quite variable. A few plants re glabrous throughout.... The pubescent character has no geographical range in Indiana and so far as I can determine, no ecological significance.