Dioecious; stems 1–4 dm, surpassing the lvs, 1–few together from a rhizome; main lvs 1–3 mm wide; peduncle often with a minute bract ca 1 cm from the top; spike 1, erect, slender, 1–3 cm; pistillate scales deep brown, a little shorter and much narrower than the perigynia, thinly hairy; perigynia appressed-ascending, obovate-oblong, 2.5–3 mm, densely short-hairy, 2-keeled, otherwise virtually nerveless, subtriangular in cross-section, the minute beak 0.2 mm; achene trigonous; ± filling the perigynium; no rachilla; 2n=62–68. Dry soil, especially in calcareous regions; irregularly circumboreal, widespread in n. N. Amer. and s. in our range to the n. parts of N. Engl., N.Y., and Mich. Our plants are var. scirpoidea.