Bogs, conifer swamps (tamarack, spruce, cedar), boggy thickets, marshes, and open swampy or boggy ground; only in acidic soils.

This is the most frequent Eriophorum of acidic soils in southern Michigan. The bristles are typically copper colored to tan. They are white in the rather frequent f. album (A. Gray) Wiegand.

This species flowers much later than other Eriophorum, and  is visible in bogs until late fall, the tawny heads standing out when the rest of the vegetation is in fall color. All other species are long disintegrated by this time. 

The inflorescece is white when in bloom, rather like a giant Rhynchospora alba, the bristles turning tawny only later (if at all).