In most kinds of wet open places: fens, springy marly areas; tamarack and cedar thickets and openings; sandy or mucky shores; moist roadsides, ditches, and sandy excavations; meadows, beach pools and marshes, interdunal swales. Mostly confined to fens southwards, but occurring in the full diversity of open habitats northward.

The flowers are very fragrant, and tend to be somewhat ascending. The rachis and bracts of the inflorescence are ordinarily much less densely glandular-pubescent than in S. cernua. Beginning to bloom in July, earlier than members of the S. cernua complex.