General: Perennial, tufted herb from fibrous rootstocks; stems 15-100 cm tall, exceeding the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight; blades flat, 1.5-4 mm wide, borne on the lower 1/3 of the stems.
Flowers: Spikes 4 to 10, aggregated into a 1- to 2-cm long head, unstalked, with both female and male flowers, the female ones towards the tips; bracts subtending the spikes sheathless, at least one of the lower ones conspicuously prolonged and bristlelike, 2-10 cm long, the others reduced or inconspicuous.
Fruits: Perigynia lanceolate or narrowly egg-shaped, 3-5 mm long, 1.2-1.8 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, lightly several-nerved on both sides or nerveless below, the beaks bidentate, less than 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, 1.1-1.6 mm long.
Moist to wet meadows and open forests in the lowland, montane and steppe zones; common in BC south of 55degreeN, rare northward and along the coast, absent from the Queen Charlotte Islands; N to AK, E to MB and S to TX, NM, AZ and CA.
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)
