E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia

General:
Perennial, densely tufted herb from fibrous roots; stems 10-60 cm tall, about equalling the leaves, roughened above.

Leaves:
Sheaths tight, more or less red-dotted on the fronts; blades 2 to 4 per stem, flat or channelled, smooth, borne on the lower 1/2 of the stems, 0.7-3 mm wide, the lower ones reduced.

Flowers:
Spikes 2 to 7, the terminal one unstalked, 4-10 mm long, with both male and female flowers, the female flowers towards the tips, the lower spikes 1 to 4, ascending, remote, 5- to 15-flowered, with female flowers, short-stalked; bracts subtending the female spikes short to prolonged and hairlike, the latter up to 2 cm long, bladeless, the upper bracts reduced and scalelike.

Fruits:
Perigynia egg-shaped, 2.5-4 mm long, 1-1.4 mm wide, plano-convex, reflexed, appressed, or spreading, greenish-yellow to brownish, sharp-edged, with smooth margins, finely-nerved to nerveless, the beaks 1-1.5 mm long, inconspicuously bidentate; female scales egg-shaped and rounded or pointed to awned at the tips, shorter than the perigynia, yellowish-brown to chestnut brown, with greenish midribs, the margins and tips broad, bright white or narrow, opaque or dull whitish; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, sharp-pointed, 1.4-2 mm long.

Notes:
Two varieties are recognized for BC :

1. Female scales rounded, chestnut brown, the margins and tips broad, bright white.............. ssp. phyllomanica (W. Boott) Reznicek

1. Female scales pointed to awned, yellowish-brown, the margins and tips narrow, opaque or dull whitish............... ssp. echinata