Horizontal stems flat on ground, 3--12 X 0.5--0.9 cm; stems (excluding leaves) slender, 0.5--0.9 mm diam.; leaves monomorphic, spreading, upcurved, 5--6 X 0.5--0.7 mm, margins entire. Peduncles 1(--2) per plant, 3.5--6 X 0.4--0.7 cm; strobilus length 1/2--1/3 total height; leaves spreading, 5--6 X 0.5--0.8 mm, margins rarely toothed. Strobili 10--20 X 2.5--5.5 mm. Sporophylls spreading to spreading-ascending, 4.5--5 X 0.5--0.9 mm, margins rarely toothed. 2 n = 156. Bogs, lakeshores, marshes, lichens, borrow pits; 0--2000 m; St. Pierre and Miquelon; Alta., B.C., N.B., Nfld., N.S., Ont., P.E.I., Sask., Que.; Alaska, Calif., Conn., Idaho, Ill., Ind., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mont., N.H., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Oreg., Pa., R.I., Vt., Va., Wash., W.Va., Wis.; Eurasia.

Sterile stems ±prostrate, irregularly rooting, flattened, the lvs of the lower side twisted into an ascending position; lvs 8-10-ranked, linear-subulate, mostly entire, 5-7 נ0.5-0.7 mm; fertile stems few, erect, to 1 dm, 1 mm thick; sporophylls ascending or spreading, crowded into a sessile terminal cone 1.5-5 cm נ6-12 mm, all except the lower abruptly expanded near the base and usually with a single pair of sharp teeth near the expansion, otherwise like the lvs; sporangia subglobose, 1-1.3 mm wide; spores 43 microns or more in diameter, the sides convex, the outer face wavy-reticulate, the commissural faces papillose, the commissures sunken in deep furrows; 2n=156. Acid soil of bogs, shores, and meadows, often in seasonally inundated sites; circumboreal, s. to Md., sw. Va., O., Wis., Minn., and Calif.

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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