General: Perennial herb from slender, long-creeping rhizomes; stems 10-30 (40) cm tall, arising singly or a few together or sometimes matted, usually exceeding the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight, brownish or blackish at the bases; blades 3 to 8 per stem, in-rolled on the uppersides or sometimes flat, gradually tapering to the tips, 1-2.5 mm wide.
Flowers: Spikes usually either male or female on separate plants, the male inflorescence with many aggregated spikes in a narrowly cylindrical to broadly egg-shaped head, the female inflorescence with many aggregated, but distinguishable, spikes in a cylindrical to nearly globe-shaped head, 1.5-5 cm long, unstalked; bracts of the lowest spike leaflike and longer than the spike, those above reduced and much like the scales.
Fruits: Perigynia narrowly egg-shaped, 3.5-4.5 mm long, 1.6-1.9 mm wide, straw-coloured to brownish, smooth, obscurely many-nerved, crowded, erect, unstalked, the beaks bidentate, 1-1.5 mm long, finely toothed; female scales lanceolate, straw-coloured to light brown, with translucent margins and green centres, wider and longer than the perigynia; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, 1.7-1.8 mm long.
Moist to dry, often alkaline, meadows and grassy slopes in the steppe and montane zones; infrequent in SC and SE BC; E to S MB and S to MO, NE, 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)
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