Japan Flora: Rhizomes ascending; culms 10-30 cm. long, acutely angled, smooth; leaves rigid, the blades 3-4 mm. wide, flat, somewhat firm, the basal sheaths sometimes blade­less, firm, castene이is, shining; spikes 4 or 5, fastigiate, the terminal staminate, 10-15 mm. long, the lateral pistillate, ob­long, 1-2 cm. long, the upper ones sessile, the lowest one short-peduncled, the lowest bract short, leaf like; pistillate scales elliptic, dark brown, rounded at the apex, narrowly to scarcely white-hyaline on margins; perigynia as large as or slightly larger than the scales, obovate, 2.5 mm. long, green, becoming brownish at maturity, turgid, densely puncticulate, nerveless, abruptly very short-beaked, with an entire tip; stigmas 2. Alpine slopes;

Hokkaido (Mount Daisetsu), rare. n. Korea, Kamchatka, Siberia, n. Europe, and N. America