Japan Flora: Rhizomes rather stout and elongate; culms 70-100 cm. long, slender, somewhat firm; leaves with narrow stiff blades, canaliculate above, 1.5-3 mm. wide, involute or flat, the basal sheaths bladeless, dark sanguineous-purple; upper 1-4 spikes staminate, contiguous, reddish purple, 2-5 cm. long, linear, erect, the lower 1 or 2 pistillate, oblong to short-cylindric, densely flowered, 2-4 cm. long, the lowest short-peduncled, the bracts setaceous, with or without a short sheath; pistillate scales narrowly ovate, brownish or reddish brown; perigynia nearly as long as or slightly longer than the scales, ovoid, 4-5 mm. long, coriaceous, brown-hairy to nearly glabrous, gradually short-beaked, deeply bifurcate at tip, the lobes erect; stigmas 3.  June-Aug. High moors.

Hokkaido, Honshu (Kozuke, Kaga, Rikuchu Prov.); rather rare.  Sakhalin, s. Kuriles, n. Korea, and e. Siberia, Eurasia and N. America.