Culms 2-85 cm. Leaves of flowering stems much shorter than culms, to 19 cm × 1-5.4 mm; ligules of distal cauline leaves truncate or rounded. Inflorescences: peduncles of terminal staminate spikes to 25 mm; proximal pistillate spikes 1-4, 5.4-11 mm wide; terminal staminate spikes 5.1-25.3 × 1.3-3.6 mm. Perigynia (2.7-)3.2-4.5 × 1-2 mm; beak forming an angle of (5-)15-40(-58)° with body. Achenes 1.2-1.8 × 0.9-1.4 mm.

Fruiting Jul-Aug. Moist to wet fens and runnels, on lime-rich soils, maritime in North America; 0-500 m; N.B., Nfld. and Labr., N.S., Que.; Europe (from Norway and w Russia to France and Greece).

Much like no. 154 [Carex flava L.]; staminate spike on a long peduncle surpassing the uppermost pistillate spike; most pistillate spikes remote; perigynia 3.5-5 mm, conspicuously swollen, the body nearly as wide as long, abruptly contracted to the beak, the central ones spreading, only the lower deflexed; 2n=58, 68. Wet places in calcareous districts; Europe, and locally from N.S. to Nf. and e. Que. (C. flava var. l.)

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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