Phippsia algida

Phippsia algida, the icegrass or snow grass, is a small, tufted perennial grass of the Poaceae with a circumpolar arctic-alpine distribution, occurring on cold, moist, often calcareous gravels, snowbed margins, and frost-disturbed soils at high latitudes and elevations. Plants form low, dense tufts 3–10 cm tall from a fine, fibrous root system without rhizomes. Leaf blades are short, flat to folded, 1–4 cm long and 0.5–2 mm wide, soft, glabrous, and pale green; sheaths are loose and ligules are membranous, 1–3 mm long, often truncate. The inflorescence is a small, narrow, contracted to slightly open panicle 1–3 cm long with short ascending branches bearing few spikelets. Spikelets are tiny, 1.5–2 mm long, single-flowered, laterally compressed; glumes are minute, hyaline, and often shed early. The lemma is membranous, 3-nerved, with a blunt apex; the palea is two-keeled. Anthers are about 0.3 mm long. Flowering occurs briefly in the short arctic summer (July–August).