Pistillate scales dark brown to black, margins sometimes narrowly hyaline, ovate or lanceolate, equaling and as long and wide as perigynia, midvein raised, prominent, dark, same color as body, inconspicuous, apex acute. Perigynia distally uniform reddish brown to purple, or with narrow, light colored margins, veinless, ovate, papillose; beak same color as distal portion of perigynium.

Fruiting Jun–Aug. Arctic and alpine tundra, forming mats on exposed sites with mineral soils; 350–1850; B.C., N.W.T., Yukon; Alaska.

The name Carex podocarpa has been misapplied to specimens of C. microchaeta subsp. microchaeta. The illustration in K. K. Mackenzie (1940) as C. podocarpa is C. microchaeta subsp. microchaeta.