Japan Flora: Rhizomes short, tufted and forming a large clump; culms many, 20-40 cm. long, obtusely 3-angled, smooth; leaves fascicled, the blades 5-10 mm. wide, flat, thick and very stiff, deep green (white-striped in a widely grown garden cultivar), lustrous, scabrous on margin, many veined on upper side, the basal sheaths dark castaneous, dull, sparsely fibrous when withered or old; spikes 4-6, distant, the terminal staminate, linear to narrowly clavate, 2-4 cm. long, the others pistillate, short-cylindric, on long exserted erect peduncles, the lower bracts short-bladed, inflated and long-sheathing; pistil­late scales ovate, brownish, sometimes pale, abruptly cuspidate; perigynia broadly ovoid, 3-3.5 mm. long, obliquely spreading to somewhat divergent, stramineous or yellowish green, gla­brous, nerved, turgid, abruptly tapering into a moderately long, recurved beak with a firm sharply 2-toothed tip; stigmas 3.  Apr.-May. Woods in low mountains.

Honshu (Iwaki Prov. and westw., chiefly on the Pacific side), Shikoku, Kyu­shu.

var. laxa Ohwi. Leaves 3-5 mm. wide; pistillate scales rather loosely flowered; perigynia narrowly ovoid, gradually long-beaked. Kyushu (Yakushima); rare.

var. temnolepis (Franch.) Ohwi  Leaves 3-5mm. wide; pistillate spikes densely flowered; beak of the perigynia usually scabrous on the margins. May-June. Woods in mountains; Honshu (Ugo Prov. to Tanba, mainly on the Japan Sea side)