Japan Flora: Rhizomes stout, creeping; culms 30-50 cm. long, smooth; leaf-blades 2-5 mm. wide, flat, the margins slightly ^curved; basal leaf-sheaths bladeless, somewhat dark reddish purple, not splitting into fibers; upper 1 to 3 spikes staminate, linear, the lower 2 or 3 pistillate, short-cylindric, sometimes with a few staminate flowers toward the apex, erect, 2-3 cm. long, sessile or short- peduncled, the lower 1 or 2 bracts leaf-like, about as long as the inflorescence; pistillate scales narrowly ovate, dark brown­ish purple, acute; perigynia slightly longer than the scales, broadly ovate, thick plano-convex, glaucous-brown, densely papillose, rather thick, inconspicuously nerved, abruptly very short beaked, with a firm entire tip; stigmas 2. June-July. Salt-marshes.

Hokkaido (Nemuro). Sakhalin and Kam­chatka.