The plant is loose-leafed, with a thin creeping rhizome .
The stems are granular, deeply furrowed, not more than 0.7 mm in diameter, 10-40 cm tall.
The leaves are narrowly linear or filiform-folded, up to 0.6 (1.2) mm wide [2] , rough, smooth at the base.
Spikelet stamen or pistillate (dioecious plants), very rarely androgynous (with 1-2 pistillate flowers at the base). Stamen spikelets narrowly cylindrical, 1–2.1 cm long [2] ; their ovoid, dull, red or yellow-brown scales can be with a wide, membranous border. Pistillate spikelets are linear or oblong-ovate, with 7-15 sacs, 0.7-1.7 cm long [2] . Scales of pistillate spikelets are ovate or broadly ovate, blunt or islet, brown, dark brown or light rusty, with white membranous edges, slightly or half as long as the sacs. Sachets are ovoid, oblong-ovate or ovate-lanceolate, unequally biconvex, thin-skinned, (3) 3.5-4 (5 [2] ) mm long, (1.2) 1.5-1.5 (1.7 ) mm wide, mature horizontally or downwardly deflected, with thin veins , on a short stalk, whole, obliquely truncated nose, brownish or reddish-brown. Stigma 2.
Fruit at base without axial appendage. Fruits in June-August.
The number of chromosomes 2n = 26, 34, 44.
The view is described from northern Sweden .
Northern Europe : mountains of Sweden and Norway (rarely), Svalbard , Arctic Scandinavia ; The Baltic states ; The Arctic part of Russia : Murman ( Pechengi district, Rybachy peninsula, Cape Svyatoy Nos , Cape Orlov ), Malozemelskaya tundra ( Korovinsky ridge , between the Pechora Bay and Kolokolkovaya Bay ), Bolshezemelskaya tundra , Kolguyev Island , Kara Tundra , Vaigach Island ( Varneka Bay) the lower reaches of the Ob ( Salekhard , Poluya valley), the lower Yenisei , Novaya Zemlya ( South Island and south of the North ), the Khatanga basin, the lower reaches of Olenek and Lena , the Polar Urals ; European part of Russia : Khibiny , Subpolar , Northern and Middle Urals ; Western Siberia ; Altai ; Eastern Siberia : east of the Lena and Baikal (rarely); Central Asia : Dzhungar Alatau ( Myn-Chukur Range); Central Asia : Mongolia (Mongolian Altai); North America : East Greenland (between 70 and 75 ° north latitude).
It grows in mossy swamps , in swampy light forests, moist forests , in marshy meadows , along the banks of reservoirs, in moss tundra ; on the plain and in the mountains to the bottom of the alpine zone .