Plants densely cespitose. Culms 20–80 cm; vegetative culms with leaf blades in stiff rosettes. Leaves: sheaths adaxially green-veined nearly to collar, with a white-hyaline band or sharp Y-shaped hyaline region at collar; adaxially firm, summits truncate, prolonged 0.3 mm beyond collar, abaxially finely papillose; distal ligules 2–7 mm; blades 2–4 per fertile culm, 14–30 cm × 3–6(–8) mm. Inflorescences dense or open, light green or brown, 1.5–4(–5) cm × 7–16 mm; proximal internode 3–5(–12) mm; 2d internode 2–9 mm; proximal bracts bristlelike or, sometimes, leaflike. Spikes 3–10, distant, distinct, conic or ovoid, 6–12 × 4–7 mm, base truncate or rounded, apex obtuse; staminate portion 2 mm or less. Pistillate scales white-hyaline or brown, with green or white midstripe extending to tip, broadly lanceolate, 2.8–3.5 mm, shorter and narrower than perigynia, apex firm, obtuse or acute. Perigynia appressed, greenish to dark brown, conspicuously 3–7-veined abaxially, inconspicuously veined adaxially, obovate, concavo-convex, 3–4.2 × (1.8–)2–3.2 mm, 0.5–0.7 mm thick, margin flat, including wing 0.5–0.8 mm wide; beak appressed-ascending, brown at tip, flat, ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with white or hyaline brown margin, distance from beak tip to achene 1.5–2 mm. Achenes elliptic, 1.7–1.9 × 1.1–1.25 mm, 0.5–0.6 mm thick; styles abaxially-adaxially bent. 2n = 36, 38.
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Tufted, aphyllopodic, 4–8 dm; main lvs 3–5 mm wide, shorter than the stiff stems, their sheaths ventrally green-veined almost to the summit; spikes 5–10, gynaecandrous, ovoid with rounded base, 7–10 mm, sessile, densely aggregated in an ovoid cluster 2–3 cm; pistillate scales much (usually 1–1.5 mm) shorter than the perigynia, hyaline, pale green or ± stramineous, obtuse; perigynia appressed, flatly planoconvex, 3.3–4 × 2.4–3.8 mm, nerveless on the ventral face of the obovate-orbicular body, abruptly rounded to the 0.75 mm beak; achene lenticular, 2 × 1.25 mm. Dry, rocky or sandy soil; P.E.I. to Wis., s. to N.J. and Ill.
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