General: Perennial, loosely tufted herb from long rhizomes; stems 15-60 cm tall, longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight; blades 3 to 7, borne on the lower part of the stem, 0.5-2 mm wide, flat or channeled.
Flowers: Spikes 3 to 5 in a terminal head, egg-shaped, many-flowered, 5-10 mm long, ascending, with both female and male flowers, the female flowers towards the tips, the male flowers inconspicuous; all bracts strongly reduced.
Fruits: Perigynia elliptical, elongated, 3-3.5 mm long, 0.8-1.3 mm wide, greenish-white, minutely whitish-dotted, plano-convex, smooth, faintly nerved, unstalked; female scales egg-shaped, covering the perigynia, blunt, light green, with green midribs; stigmas 2; achenes lens-shaped, 1.7-2 mm long.
Fens, bogs and moist forests in the montane zone; infrequent in BC east of the Coast Mountains and N of 52degreeN; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, NY, MI, MN, NM and WA; Eurasia.
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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