General: Perennial, tufted herb from short-creeping rhizomes; stems 30-120 cm tall, triangular, smooth, except slightly rough below the inflorescence, slightly longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight; ligules as long as wide to slightly wider than long; blades 4 to 8 per stem, cross-walled, borne on the lower 1/2 of the stem, 5-15 mm wide, flat, the margins rolled-under, 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 spikes 2 to 4, cylindrical, 2.5-7.5 cm long, with female flowers, or some with male flowers above the female flowers, long-stalked, the lowermost drooping; bracts subtending the lowest spike leaflike, sheathless, the lowest longer than the inflorescence.
Fruits: Perigynia elliptical, 5-9 mm long, 1.7-3 mm wide, yellowish-green to reddish-brown, somewhat inflated, smooth, shiny, strongly nerved, contracted into long beaks 1.5-3 mm long, the beaks bidentate with straight teeth; female scales lanceolate to egg-shaped, pointed, narrower and shorter than the perigynia, yellowish- to reddish-brown, with 3-nerved, lighter centres and narrow, translucent margins; stigmas 3; achenes 3-angled, 1.7-2.4 mm long.
Swamps, marshes, fens, pools, shorelines and wet meadows in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; common throughout BC except absent on the Queen Charlotte Islands; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, VA, TN, IA, NE, CO and CA; Greenland, 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)
