General: Perennial, somewhat tufted herb from fibrous roots; stems 30-100 cm tall, roughened on the angles, longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths not coppery-coloured, conspicuously red-dotted with glandular projections on the side nearest the stems, the blades of the lower ones large, firm, persistent; blades 3 or 4 per stem, mostly from near the base, 1-2.5 (3) mm wide, flat, the margins rolled-under.
Flowers: Spikes numerous in a 2- to 5-cm long, narrow head, egg-shaped, few-flowered, 4-5 mm long, 3-4 mm wide, erect or mostly ascending, with both female and male flowers, the male flowers towards the tips; bracts inconspicuous, sheathless, often similar to the female scales.
Fruits: Perigynia broadly egg-shaped, 2.5-3 mm long, 1-1.3 mm wide, straw-coloured to usually dark brown, biconvex, smooth, strongly nerved on the outside, short-stalked, the beaks as long as the bodies, slightly bidentate, not winged, the margins obscurely fine-toothed; female scales egg-shaped, equalling or slightly longer than the perigynia, pointed, brown, the margins translucent; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, 1.2-1.4 mm long.
Bogs, swamps and fens in all but the alpine zone; common in BC in and east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, rare in SW BC; circumboreal, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to NH, PA, OH, IL, IN, MO, NE, NM, UT, NV and CA; Iceland, Eurasia.
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)