Also provides nesting habitat, cover, and dancing grounds for sharptail grouse and prairie chickens. Regenerates primarily by vegetative means. Its long rhizomes allow it to spread out and colonize nearby open areas. The short rhizomes are responsible for tuft or mat formation. A cool-season plant, making one of the earliest spring appearances of the sedges.
Growth begins in shoots formed the previous autumn and early winter.
Leaves are apparently functional during the winter, summer, and fall.