General: Perennial, loosely tufted herb from short creeping rhizomes; stems 10-40 cm tall, exceeding the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths purplish-red towards the bases; blades flat, 2-6 mm wide, the lower ones not reduced.
Flowers: Terminal spike with male flowers, often with female flowers at the tip or throughout, the lower spikes 2 to 5, with female flowers, short-stalked, 0.6-2 cm long, erect; bracts subtending the spikes sheathless, bristlelike to scalelike, shorter than the inflorescence.
Fruits: Perigynia egg-shaped, 2-3 mm long, 1.2-1.8 mm wide, greenish-yellow to brown, marginally 2-ribbed, otherwise nerveless, the beaks obscure, less than 0.3 mm long; female scales lanceolate to egg-shaped, nearly as long as and as wide as the perigynia, pointed at the tips, sometimes extended into short awns, reddish-black, with green midribs and light brown margins; stigmas 3; achenes 3-angled, 1.2-1.5 mm long.
Moist, often alkaline, meadows and lakeshores in the steppe and montane zones; frequent in SC and SE BC; N to AK, YT and NT, E to ON and S to MN, ND, CO, UT and NV.
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)
