General: Perennial herb from creeping rhizomes; stems 10-90 cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths brownish to purplish or blackish, persistent; blades 2-6 (8) mm wide, flat but becoming narrow and folded toward the tips, the uppermost ones equalling or exceeding the sheaths.
Flowers: Spikes 2 to 10, terminal, erect, at least some of them pendulous, egg-shaped and 1-2 cm long in flower, 2-4 cm long in fruit; anthers 2.5-4 mm long; involucral bracts several, unequal, 2 or more of them evidently leaflike, the longest ones equalling or surpassing the inflorescence.
Fruits: Scales brownish or blackish-green, egg-shaped to lanceolate, appressed to ascending, 1-ribbed, pointed, the slender midribs not reaching the tips; perianth bristles numerous, whitish, creamy-white to tawny, many times longer than the achenes; achenes blackish, 2-3 mm long, broadly lanceolate to egg-shaped.
Bogs, fens, marshes, shorelines and wet meadows in all vegetation zones; common throughout BC; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to NH, NC, TN, IA, NE, NM, ID and OR; 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)
A very shade-intolerant, submontane to subalpine, circumpolar sedge (transcontinental in North America). Occurs on wet to very wet, nitrogen-poor soils (Mor humus forms) within boreal, cool temperate, and cool mesothermal climates. Common in semi-terrestrial communities on water-collecting sites (peat bogs). Associated with Kalmia occidentalis, Ledum groenlandicum, Sphagnum species, and Trientalis arctica. An oxylophytic species characteristic of nutrient-poor wetlands.
