General: Perennial herb from slender rhizomes; stems solitary, arising singly or a few together, stiff, erect, 10-60 cm tall, longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths brownish, tight; blades 1 to 3, flat or channeled, 0.5-1.8 mm wide, smooth or sometimes with roughened margins, ascending, the tips long-pointed.
Flowers: Spikes solitary, 0.5-1.5 cm long, 0.5-1.2 mm wide, with both female and male flowers, the few erect male flowers towards the tips, the lower 1 to 6 flowers female; bractless.
Fruits: Perigynia few, narrowly lanceolate, 6-7.5 mm long, 1-1.5 mm wide, pale green, becoming brownish-green or straw-coloured, soon reflexed, nearly round in cross-section, membranaceous, smooth, finely-nerved, unstalked, the beaks not differentiated from the bodies; female scales lanceolate, short-awned, as wide as or slightly wider and shorter than the perigynia, brownish, early deciduous, with greener midstripes, the margins often translucent; stigmas 3; achenes 3-angled, 1.5-2.5 mm long.
Bogs and fens in the lowland, montane and subalpine zones; common along the coast and in EC BC, less frequent elsewhere; circumpolar, N to AK and YT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, WV, IN, WI, MN, and NW WA; Eurasia.
View a video on identification of Carex pauciflora by Tony Reznicek, University of Michigan.
Ecology
Ecological Framework for Carex pauciflora
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)
