Tufted, 3–7 dm; fertile stems erect or ascending, lateral or sometimes central, sharply triangular and narrowly winged, smooth or nearly so; basal sheaths light brown; lvs of the short sterile shoots 5–25 mm wide, of the fertile shoots narrower, 2–8 mm; bract-sheaths smooth or sometimes serrulate on the angles; terminal spike staminate, 1–2.5 cm, on a peduncle 1–2 cm; pistillate spikes 2–4, 1–3 cm, slender, scattered on short or elongate, erect peduncles, none basal; at least the lower pistillate scales cuspidate or short-awned; perigynia 5–15, only slightly or scarcely overlapping, 2.6–3.8 mm, finely many-nerved as well as 2-ribbed, obtusely trigonous, obovoid, tapering to a rather short, straight or slightly outcurved beak with an oblique, entire orifice; achene trigonous; 2n=40. Dry to mesic woods; Me. and s. Que. to Del. and Md., and in the mts. to N.C., Tenn., and Ala., w. to Wis. and Ind.; s. Mex.
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