Tufted, 1–4 dm; lvs flat to canaliculate, often equaling or surpassing the stems, mostly 1–3 mm wide; terminal spike sessile or short-peduncled, slender, staminate, 7–21 mm; lateral spikes 2–4, pistillate (or the upper androgynous), short and stout, 5–15 mm, sometimes compound, all sessile or short-pedunculate and crowded at the summit, or 1 or 2 of the lower ± remote and more evidently pedunculate; bracts sheathless or nearly so (except those subtending any remote spikes), one or more of them with an elongate blade much surpassing the infl; pistillate scales shorter than the perigynia, thin and pale except the green midrib, varying to medium brown; perigynia 2.2–3.3 mm, straight or nearly so, mostly spreading or the lower reflexed, pale green to stramineous or yellowish, obovoid, distended by the trigonous, 1.1–1.4 mm achene but distally empty and slightly inflated, irregularly several-nerved, or with 2 ± evidently marginal nerves and 2–6 often less prominent ones on each face, the slender, ± smooth beak 0.8–1.2 mm; 2n=66–72. Abundant on boggy or marly shores in calcareous districts; circumboreal, s. in Amer. to N.J., Ind., S.D., and N.M. (C. chlorophila; C. oederi, misapplied) Hybridizes with no. 154 [Carex flava L.].
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