Japan Flora: Rhizomes ascending, stout, firm, branched, tufted; culms stout, rigid, 30-70 cm. long, acutely 3-angled; leaf-blades firm, conduplicate or flat, 2-4 mm. wide, grayish green, the basal sheaths rigid, bladeless, stramineous, rarely partly reddish, fibrous; spikes 3-5, the upper 2 or 3 staminate, clavate or lanceolate, the lower 1 or 2 pistillate or with a short staminate part at tip, oblong to ellipsoidal, 1.5-3 cm. long, only the lowest one long-peduncled and nodding, the lowest bract short, leatlike; pistillate scales narrowly ovate, dark purplish brown, rather obtuse; perigynia broadly elliptic, 3.5-4.5 mm. long, grayish green, planoconvex, thick-mem­branous, densely punctate, prominently few-nerved, abruptly very short-beaked, with a firm, entire tip; stigmas 2. June-July. Sphagnum bogs; Hokkaido, Honshu (n. and centr. distr.); common.

Kuriles, Sakhalin, Kamchatka, and Us­suri.

var. kirigaminensis (Ohwi) Ohwi. Differs from the typical phase in the erect cylindric spikes 2-4 cm. long, the upper ones ses­sile, the lowest one short-peduncled. Occasionally found with the typical phase.