General: Perennial, loosely tufted herb from long-creeping rhizomes; stems 30-150 cm tall, exceeding the leaves, smooth, reddish-tinged at the bases.
Leaves: Lower sheaths breaking into threads, the middle to upper sheaths long stiff-hairy all around or sometimes only towards the summits; ligules conspicuous; blades flat, 4-10 mm wide, smooth or often stiff-hairy on the lower side towards the bases, cross-walled.
Flowers: Spikes 4 to 10, the upper 2 to 6 with male flowers, separate, unstalked, erect, narrowly linear, 2-6 cm long, the lower 2 to 4 with female flowers, widely separated, short-stalked, erect, narrowly cylindrical, 3-10 cm long; bracts subtending the male spikes reduced or lacking, those subtending the female flowers leaflike and well developed, longer than the inflorescence.
Fruits: Perigynia ascending, lanceolate to broadly egg-shaped, 7-10 mm long, 1.7-2.5 mm wide, yellowish-green or light brownish, smooth, somewhat inflated, many-nerved, the beaks bidentate, toothed, the spreading teeth 1.2-3 mm long; female scales narrowly egg-shaped, shorter or longer than the perigynia, awn-tipped, the awns nearly as long as the scales, dull reddish-brown with 3-nerved green centres; stigmas 3; achenes 3-angled, 2-2.5 mm long.
Wet meadows, fens, marshes and lakeshores in the montane and steppe zones; frequent in BC south of 53degreeN and E of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, infrequent northward; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to PQ and S to ME, NY, IN, MO, KS, NM, AZ and CA; 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)