Carex albida (binomial authority L.H.Bailey) is now considered a synonym, but was previously thought to be a separate species; such plants have the common name white sedge.

[2] This sedge produces a dense or loose clump of erect stems 40 to 60 centimeters tall from a network of short rhizomes.

White sedge is endemic to Sonoma County, California, where it is known only from one occurrence at Pitkin Marsh, a wetland between Forestville and Sebastopol.

[3][4] As with other plants that reproduce vegetatively by cloning from their rhizomes, the number of true separate individual life forms is hard to estimate, so researchers count visible stems; a recent count revealed fewer than 300, a decrease from nearly 1000.

[4] This sedge occurs near a rare local endemic, the Pitkin Marsh lily (Lilium pardalinum ssp.