General: Perennial, tufted herb from fibrous roots; stems 20-70 cm tall, exceeding the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight; blades flat, 1.5-2.5 mm wide, borne on the lower 1/3 of the stem.
Flowers: Spikes 4 to 10 in a long, loose inflorescence, 2.5-5 cm long, unstalked, with both female and male flowers, the female ones towards the tips; bracts subtending the spikes sheathless, reduced, inconspicuous.
Fruits: Perigynia lanceolate or narrowly egg-shaped, 3-4.5 mm long, 1.5-1.8 mm wide, light green to straw-coloured or brownish, more or less flattened, the margins winged nearly to the bases, the upper 1/2 fringed with teeth, strongly nerved on both sides, the beaks shallowly bidentate, about 1 mm long, narrowly margined and toothed below; female scales egg-shaped, brownish with green centres and translucent margins, somewhat shorter and narrower than the perigynia, short-awned; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, 1.2-1.4 mm long.
Mesic to dry meadows, shorelines and open forests in the steppe and montane zones; rare throughout BC east of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; E to PQ, NB and NS and S to ME, MA, NC, GA, AL, AR, NE, and NM.
