General: Perennial herb from well-developed, stout, creeping rhizomes; stems arising singly or a few together, obscurely triangular in cross-section, 60-150 cm tall.
Leaves: Several, both stem and basal; sheaths tinted with reddish-purple or straw-coloured to greenish, cross-wrinkled; blades flat, grass-like, (6) 8-15 (20) mm wide, up to several 10's of cm long.
Flowers: Spikes numerous, terminal, 4-6 (8) mm long, unstalked in small stalked clusters, in a compound, umbel-like cyme; involucral bracts several, conspicuous, leaflike, unequal, sheathless, the largest rarely less than 10 cm long, sometimes as much as 30 cm long.
Fruits: Scales numerous, blackish or greenish-black, about 1.5 mm long, largely translucent and cellular-net-veined, smooth, egg-shaped, with greener, often poorly defined midribs that may extend from the tips as minute points; perianth bristles 4 to 6, slender, minutely and finely-barbed backwards nearly to the base, nearly equal to slightly surpassing the achenes, but not exserted beyond the scales; stigmas 2; achenes biconvex, pale, 1-1.2 mm long including the abruptly sharp-pointed tips.
Marshes, swamps and wet meadows in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; common throughout BC except absent in NW BC; amphiberingian, N to AK, E to NF and S to ME, MA, PA, WV, KY, IA, NE, NM, AZ and CA; E Asia.
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)
A shade-intolerant, submontane to subalpine, Asian and Western North American graminoid distributed equally in the Pacific and Cordilleran regions and marginally in the Central region. Occurs in cool temperate and cool mesothermal climates on wet to very wet, nitrogen-rich soils (Moder and Mull humus forms); its occurrence increases with increasing precipitation and decreases with elevation. Common and often dominant in semiÂterrestrial, usually early-seral, graminoidÂdominated communities and disturbed sites. Often associated with Carex sitchensis, occasionally associated with Lysichitum americanum. A nitrophytic species characteristic of nutrient-rich wetlands.
