General: Perennial, densely tufted herb from fibrous roots; stems 2-15 cm tall, shorter than to slightly longer than the leaves.
Leaves: Sheaths conspicuous, persistent, blunt at the mouths; blades 1 to 2 per stem, stiff, wire-like, persistent, borne on the lower 1/4 of the stem, about 0.5 mm wide.
Flowers: Spikes solitary, cylindrical to egg-shaped, 5-15 mm long, erect, with both female and male flowers, the male flowers towards the tips; bractless.
Fruits: Perigynia lanceolate to egg-shaped, 3.5-4.5 mm long, 1.2-2 mm wide, plano-convex, smooth, faintly nerved, finely toothed above, short-stalked, the beaks short, bidentate; female scales egg-shaped, about equalling the perigynia, sharp-pointed or rounded or the lowest ones awned, brownish, the midribs pale, the margins translucent; stigmas 2 or 3; achenes lens-shaped or 3-angled, about 2.5 mm long.
Dry fellfields, ridgecrests, rock outcrops, meadows and scree slopes in the alpine zone; frequent in and E of the Coast-Cascade Mountains, rare on Vancouver Island; N to AK, YT and NT, E to AB and S to CO, UT, NV and CA.
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)
