General: Perennial, tufted herb from fibrous roots; stems 20-70 cm tall, exceeding the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight; blades flat, 1-3.5 mm wide, borne on the lower 1/3 of the stems.
Flowers: Spikes 6 to12, aggregated into a compact, narrow head 1-3 cm long, unstalked, with both female and male flowers, the female ones towards the tips; bracts subtending the spikes sheathless, reduced, inconspicuous.
Fruits: Perigynia narrowly lanceolate, 3.3-4 mm long, 0.8-1 mm wide, pale green or straw-coloured, more or less flattened, the margins narrowly winged nearly to the bases, the upper 1/2 fringed with teeth, lightly several-nerved on both sides, the beaks shallowly bidentate, 1 mm long, narrowly margined and toothed below; female scales elliptical, pointed, brownish with translucent margins, somewhat shorter and narrower than the perigynia; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, 1 mm long.
Moist to wet meadows in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; common throughout BC south of 56degreeN, rare northward and on the W slopes of the Coast-Cascade Mountains; N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF, and S to MA, PA, MI, IL, MO, MT, ID and OR.
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)
