General: Perennial, densely tufted herb from fibrous roots; stems 30-80 cm tall, densely clustered, roughened on the angles above, longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight; blades 2 or 3 per stem, borne on the lower 1/4 of the stem, flat or channeled below, 1.5-3.5 mm wide.
Flowers: Spikes 4 to 8, densely aggregated into an egg- or globe-shaped, 1- to 2-cm long head, the spikes not distinguishable below, unstalked, with both female and male flowers, the inconspicuous male flowers towards the tips; bracts lacking or a rudimentary.
Fruits: Perigynia egg-shaped, 3.4-5 mm long, 1.5-2.5 mm wide, convex and nerved above, concave and nerveless below, green, smooth, very short-stalked, finely toothed on the upper 1/2, the beaks 1/3 the length of the bodies, bidentate; female scales egg-shaped, equalling or slightly shorter than the perigynia, pointed, brown, the midribs greenish, the margins translucent; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, smooth, 1.8-2 mm long.
Moist to dry meadows and forest openings in all vegetation zones; common in BC south of 56degreeN except absent from the Queen Charlotte Islands, N Vancouver Island, and the adjacent mainland; E to SW SK and S to SD, CO, UT, NV and CA.
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)
