Japan Flora: Plant loosely tufted, with short ascending rhizomes; culms 10-50 cm. long, slender, scabrous; leaf-blades flat, 2-3 mm. wide, soft, the basal sheaths reddish, sparsely fibrous; spikes 3-6, all but the lowest approximate, the terminal staminate, 4-8 mm. long, dark red, linear, with acute, scarious-margined scales, the lateral spikes pistillate, ovate-globose, 5-7 mm. long, few-flowered, the bracts scalelike, sheathless, sometimes ending in a short awnlike bristle; pistillate scales dark reddish purple, ovate-oblong, acute; perigynia longer than the scales, nar­rowly ovate to elliptic, 2.5-3.5 mm. long, obtusely trigonous, with 2 costal nerves, sparsely short-pubescent, abruptly short- beaked, with a minutely 2-toothed tip. May-July. Coni­ferous woods, sometimes in sandy places in volcanoes, often in alpine regions.

Hokkaido, Honshu, Shikoku, Kyushu; rather common. Sakhalin, Kuriles, and Formosa.

Var. lanceata (Kuekenth.) Ohwi. Pistillate scales broadly lanceolate, long-attenuate; perigynia 4-5 mm. long, narrowly lanceolate, sparsely puberulent, long-beaked.  Woods; Hon­shu (centr. and Kinki Distr.); rather rare.