General: Perennial, densely tufted herb from slender rhizomes; stems 30-70 cm tall, longer than the leaves, roughened above.
Leaves: Sheaths tight; blades about 3 to 5 per stem, flat, borne on the lower 1/2 of the stem, 1-2 mm wide, the lower ones reduced.
Flowers: Spikes 3 to 8, the terminal one unstalked, 4-7 mm long, with both male and female flowers, the female flowers towards the tips, the lower spikes 2 to 7, ascending to widely spreading, remote to crowded, 3- to 10-flowered, with female flowers only, unstalked; bracts of the lowest spike hairlike, up to 5 cm long, the upper ones reduced.
Fruits: Perigynia egg-shaped, 2.5-4 mm long, 1.5-1.7 mm wide, plano-convex, spreading or ascending, greenish-brown to light green, few-nerved, spongy below, the beaks 1/3 to 1/4 the length of the bodies, inconspicuously bidentate; female scales egg-shaped, rounded at the tips, sharply keeled, shorter than the perigynia, yellowish-brown, with greenish midribs; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, 1.2-1.8 mm long.
Bogs, shorelines, streambanks, wet meadows and moist forests in the lowland and montane zones; common in SW and SE BC south of 55degreeN, infrequent in SC BC, rare in N BC; amphiberingian, N to AK and S to CO, ID and CA; E Asia.
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)
A shade-tolerant/intolerant, submontane to subalpine. Asian and Western North American sedge distributed equally in the Pacific and Cordilleran regions. Occurs on wet to very wet, nitrogen-medium soils within boreal, temperate. and cool mesothermal climates. Scattered in non-forested, semi-terrestrial communities (less frequent in forest understories) on water-collecting sites; often with Lysichitum americanum. Characteristic of wetlands.
