Plants not cespitose. Culms obtusely angled, 30–110 cm, glabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths brown; sheaths of proximal leaves scabrous, fronts with red-brown spots or uniformly red-brown, prominently ladder-fibrillose, apex U-shaped, red-brown; blades hypostomic, 4–9 mm wide, coriaceous, papillose abaxially. Inflorescences: proximal bract longer than inflorescence, 3–8 mm wide. Spikes erect, the proximal pendent, sessile or pedunculate; staminate 2–3; pistillate 4–6; the proximal pistillate spike 3–10 cm × 5–6 mm, base attenuate. Pistillate scales red-brown, longer than perigynia, apex acute, scabrous, awned, awn to 2 mm. Perigynia divergent, dark pale brown with red-brown spots on apical 1/2, faintly 3–5-veined on each face, somewhat inflated, loosely enclosing achenes, ellipsoid or obovoid, 3–4 × 2.2–2.5 mm, leathery, dull, apex rounded or obtuse, glabrous; beak red-brown, 0.5 mm, bidentate, orifice scabrous. Achenes not constricted, dull.
Riparian areas, often dominant in the understorey of oak woodland, growing in moist places by streams or on slopes, occasionally bordering marshes, on open or brush slopes and valley flats that are wet in the spring; at elevations up to 900 metres.
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