General: Perennial herb from tough, extensive rhizomes; stems erect, simple, hard, pithy, 100-300 cm tall.
Leaves: Sheaths tapered to blades, sometimes veined; blades flat, 8-20 mm wide.
Flowers: Inflorescence a densely crowded, terminal, cylindrical spike; female and male portions of the spikes usually contiguous; the female portion below, brown, 12-30 mm wide, the male portion above, slightly wider than the female; female flowers not subtended by a bract; stigmas lanceolate to egg-shaped; pollen grains in groups of four.
Fruits: Follicles, dry, dehiscent, ellipsoid, long-hairy, about 1 mm long.
Wet ditches, ponds, lakeshores and marshes in the lowland, steppe and montane zones; common in S BC, less frequent in NE BC; circumpolar, N to AK, YT an NT, E to NF and S to ME, MA, PA, NC, FL, MS, LA, TX, NM, AZ, MX and CA; Eurasia, N Africa.
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)
