General: Perennial, densely tufted herb from long, creeping rhizomes and fibrous roots, the roots with soft, reddish-brown hairs; stems 30-150 cm tall, arising a few or many together, longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight, cross-wrinkled, reddish- to brownish-tinged at the base, the lowest ones breaking into threads; ligules as long as wide, rounded; blades 2 to 5 per stem, flat to channeled, borne on the lower 1/4 of the stem, 3-10 mm wide, the lower ones reduced.
Flowers: Spikes 3 to 7, the terminal 2 (sometimes 1 or 3) linear, 1.5-6 cm long, long-stalked, with many male flowers, the lower spikes 2 to 4, cylindrical, 1.5-6 cm long, with female flowers, or some with male flowers above the female flowers, these short-stalked, spreading or nodding; bract subtending the lowest spike leaflike, sheathless, longer than the inflorescence, the bracts reduced above.
Fruits: Perigynia broadly egg-shaped, leathery, 2.2-3.5 mm long, 1-1.2 mm wide, greenish or brownish, biconvex, smooth, faintly nerved, marginally 2-ribbed, the bases round, short-stalked, beakless or short-beaked, the beaks 0.1-0.2 mm long, entire or nearly so; female scales lanceolate, long-pointed or awned, as wide as and much longer than the perigynia, reddish-brown to dark brown, with 3-nerved, lighter centres, with narrow, translucent margins; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, sometimes constricted in the middle, smooth, 1.6-2.2 mm long.
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 montane, Pacific North American sedge. Occurs in hypermaritime to submaritime cool mesothermal climates on wet to very wet, nitrogen-rich soils (Moder and Mull humus forms); its occurrence decreases with increasing elevation and continentality. Scattered to plentiful (often dominant) in graminoid-dominated, semi-terrestrial communities; on water-collecting sites (fens, bogs, and marshes) with gleysolic or organic soils. A nitrophytic species characteristic of nutrient-rich wetlands.
