Japan Flora: Rhizomes long«creeping, rarely loosely tufted, the neck sparsely covered with brown fibers; culms 10-40 cm. long,nearly glabrous; leaf-blades rather short, 2-3 mm. wide; spikes 2-4, approximate, or the lower ones distant, the terminal staminate, clavate-lanceolate, 1-2 cnx long, the others pistillate, oblong, 7-20 mm. long, peduncled, the lowest bract nearly setaceous, short-sheathing; pistillate scales ovate, castaneous, acute to mucronate; perigynia slightly longer than the scales, about 3 mm. long, obliquely spreading, obovoid, sparsely puberulent, sometimes glabrescent, faintly nerved, abruptly short-beaked, with an emarginate tip; stigmas 3. May-July. Sunny slopes near the seacoast and in mountains.
Hokkaido, Honshu (n. and centr. distr.). Sakhalin, Kuriles, Kamchatka, Korea, and widely distributed in the northern part of e. Asia.