General: Perennial, tufted herb from slender, creeping rhizomes; stems 30-80 cm tall, exceeding the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths purplish-red towards the bases; blades flat, 2-4 mm wide, the lower ones reduced, the old sheaths breaking in a feather-like pattern.
Flowers: Spikes usually 2 to 5, the terminal spikes with both female and male flowers, the female ones towards the tips, the lower spikes 1 to 4, with female flowers, short-stalked, 0.6-3 cm long, erect; bracts subtending the spikes short-sheathing, leaflike, about equalling the inflorescence.
Fruits: Perigynia elliptical, 3-4 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, bluish-green, finely nerved, the beaks obscure, less than 0.3 mm long; female scales lanceolate, nearly as long as to longer and narrower than the perigynia, awn-tipped, reddish-black, roughly pimpled; stigmas 3; achenes 3-angled, granular, 1.5-1.7 mm long.
Bogs, fens, wet shrublands, thickets, shorelines and meadows in the lowland and montane zones; frequent in WC and S BC, absent from N BC except the extreme NW; circumpolar, N to AK and YT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, NJ, PA, SC, TN, AR, KS, CO, UT, NV and CA; Eurasia, Australia.
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)
