Tufted plant, inflorescence of multiple widely-spaced gynecandrous spikes, lower spikes have elongated portions of male flowers, perigynia relatively wide & winged and with flattened beaks that have bristly margins, female scales nearly covering peri, stigmas two. No field pics.
For submission to UBC.
Neither the Illustrated Flora of BC nor the Flora of N. America keys are really clear for this, so it's a bit hard to separate from C. cusickii, but I went with C. prairea due to the prolonged sheaths and the very short ligules.
Generally, you have a large tufted plant with long stems, very long narrow leaves, "coppery" colouring on the mouth of the sheath, drooping branched heads (refer to FNA descriptions, not the key in Ill. Flora of BC, C. prairea does have a branched inflorescence), spikes androgynous, female scales nearly covering the perigynia, peri with a long beak, veined abaxially but not adaxially, achenes "broadly trullate-ovate", etc.
There's just one field photo, it shows habitat and also some of the plants if you zoom to the lower centre part of the photo you can see the arching drooping stems and heads.
For submission to UBC.
On river bank. This observation goes together with another one from three weeks before: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/98257676.
1-flowered, callus hairs as long as lemma, lemma awn 6-7 mm, panicle dense & contracted; rhizomatous.
Basal leaves entire & evidently triple-nerved; hairs of stem widely spreading; plants sparingly branched; pappus double (inner of long bristles and outer of very short scales).
Collected for UBC.
Leaf back glabrous and glaucous; leaf shape ovate / elliptic with apex acute and base rounded to subcordate; margin crenate; stipules foliaceous; catkins sessile; ovaries glabrous; floral bract dark brown; style > 1 mm.
Collected for UBC.
Stipules clasping, wing petal tips notched, hairs basifixed, pods stipitate.
Collected for UBC.
Spikelets pedicellate, 1-flowered, glumes scabrous & > lemma, lemma awned from the back with awn exerted, callus hairy, ligules 2-6 mm truncate & entire to lacerate, collar scabrous; tufted perennial with contracted panicle. On rocky grassland slope.
Collected for UBC.
In badlands habitat
?
No spreading white hairs in disc corollas? Hairs in axils of old leaves are not exactly white though, but not brown either.