General: Perennial, tufted herb from short rhizomes; stems 10-35 cm tall, equalling or much longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths blunt at the tips with short ligules; blades 2 to 4 per stem from near the bases, thread-like, about 1 mm wide, the lower ones lacking or reduced to scales.
Flowers: Spikes solitary, globe- or egg-shaped, 5-15 mm long, 3-7 mm wide, erect, with both female and male flowers, the male flowers towards the tips; bractless.
Fruits: Perigynia egg- to nearly globe-shaped, 2-3.5 mm long, about 1.5 mm wide, pale green, flattened, smooth, nerveless on the fronts, finely few-nerved on the backs, unstalked, the beaks 0.3-0.7 mm long, bidentate; female scales egg-shaped, slightly shorter than the perigynia, round-tipped, dark brown, the margins translucent; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, 1.2-2 mm long.
Bogs and moist to dry, rocky slopes, streambanks and seepage slopes in the subalpine and alpine zones; frequent throughout BC in and E of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to NH, UT, NM, CA and MX; Greenland, Iceland, Eurasia, disjunct to S South America.
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)
