General: Perennial herb from slender, creeping rhizomes; stems 10-60 cm tall, arising singly or a few together, longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths tight, tubular; blades 4 to 8 per stem, flat or channeled towards the bases, borne on the lower 1/4 of the stem, 1-5 mm wide.
Flowers: Spikes 3 to 5, more or less remote, long-stalked, erect to spreading, the terminal one linear, 1-2 cm long, with male flowers, the lower 2 to 4 spikes cylindrical, with female flowers; bracts subtending the female spikes sheathing, leaflike, 1-3 cm long, shorter than the spikes.
Fruits: Perigynia egg-shaped to elliptical, 3.5-5 mm long, 1.5-2 mm wide, yellowish-green or brownish, slightly inflated, smooth, shiny, strongly 2-nerved marginally, spreading or ascending, short-stalked, the beaks bidentate, often dark-tipped, 0.6-1.2 mm long; female scales egg-shaped, shorter than the perigynia, brown, the centres pale green, the margins translucent, the tips round to short-awned; stigmas 3; achenes 3-angled, 1.6-2.2 mm long.
Swamps, bogs, seepage areas and wet meadows in the montane zone; frequent in N and E BC, rare in SC BC; circumpolar, N to AK, YT and NT, E to NF and S to ME, VT, MI, WI, MN and MT; 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)
