General: Perennial, tufted herb from short-creeping rhizomes; stems 15-100 cm tall, triangular, smooth, shorter than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight; ligules longer than wide; blades 4 to 8 per stem, flat, with whitish cross-walls, borne on the lower 1/2 of the stem, 3-10 mm wide, flat, the lower ones reduced, persistent.
Flowers: Spikes 4 to 7, the terminal 2 or 3 linear, 1.5-5 cm long, long-stalked, with many male flowers, the lower 2 to 4 spikes cylindrical, 2.5-7.5 cm long, with female flowers, or some with male flowers above the female flowers, short-stalked, usually clustered together; bracts subtending the lowest spikes leaflike, sheathless, much longer than the inflorescence.
Fruits: Perigynia elliptical, mostly reflexed, 7-10 mm long, 1.7-3 mm wide, yellowish-green to reddish-brown, somewhat inflated, smooth, shiny, strongly nerved, contracted into long beaks, the beaks 2-3.5 mm long, bidentate, with straight teeth; female scales lanceolate to egg-shaped, pointed, much narrower and shorter than the perigynia, yellowish- to reddish-brown, with 3-nerved, lighter greenish centres and narrow, translucent margins; stigmas 3; achenes 3-angled, 1.7-2.1 mm long.
Marshes, fens, swamps, shorelines, streambanks and wet meadows in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; frequent in S BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains and south of 56degreeN, rare in SW BC; N to NT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, PA, OH, IN, IL, IA, SD, CO, UT, NV and OR.
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)
