General: Perennial herb from creeping rhizomes; stems 5-40 cm tall, equalling the leaves or nearly so, roughened above.
Leaves: Sheaths short, greenish-whitish; blades 2 to 4 from near the base, flat, 1-2 mm wide, the lower ones lacking or reduced, roughened at the tips.
Flowers: Spikes solitary, with both female and male flowers, the male flowers towards the tips, 1-3 cm long, 2-3 mm wide, erect; bract subtending the spike lacking.
Fruits: Perigynia lanceolate to narrowly elliptical, 3.8-4.2 mm long, 1.3-1.6 mm wide, yellowish-green to straw-coloured, obscurely compressed-triangular, smooth, many-nerved, the beaks about 1 mm long; female scales lanceolate, shorter or longer than the perigynia, the lower ones awn-tipped, the upper ones round-tipped, dark brown with 1- to 3-nerved green centres; stigmas 3, rarely 2; achenes 3-angled, granular, 1.3-1.5 mm long.
Fens, bogs and bog forests from the montane to subalpine zones; frequent in coastal BC, rare in NW BC; amphiberingian, N to AK, YT and NT, S to WA; E Asia.
The table below shows the species-specific information calculated from original data (BEC database) provided by the BC Ministry of Forests and Range. (Updated August, 2013)
A shade-intolerant, submontane to subalpine, Asian and Western North American sedge distributed more in the Pacific than the Cordilleran region. Occurs in boreal and hypermaritime to maritime cool mesothermal climates on wet to very wet, nutrient-medium soils. Its occurrence decreases with increasing elevation and continentality. Common in non-forested, semi-terrestrial communities on water-collecting sites, occasional in openÂcanopy forests on seepage sites. Characteristic of wet forests and wetlands.
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