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Very dense leafy tufts up to 90 cm high. Stems slender, sharply 3-angled, scabrid on margins below inflorescence. Leaves < stems, 2-3 mm wide, ± flat. Inflorescence 2-6 cm long, of 4-12 very clearly defined sessile spikes aggregated into an oblong or linear-oblong head; one or two lower spikes with small inconspicuous setaceous bracts < inflorescence. Spikes androgynous, male flowers at base, oblong or ovoid-oblong, tapering or rounded at apex. Glumes < utricles, lanceolate, acute, narrower than utricles at tip, light brown or white-hyaline, midrib green. Utricles ± 4 × 1-1.5 mm, lanceolate to narrow ovate-lanceolate, flat, faintly nerved on each side, greenish to brownish, ± narrowly winged throughout, minutely scabrid on margins of upper half, tapering to a beak ± 1 mm long. Stigmas 2. Nut ovoid-oblong.
Tufted, 3–10 dm, aphyllopodic; main lvs 1.5–3 mm wide, shorter than the stems; sheaths ventrally hyaline; spikes 3–8, gynaecandrous, 8–14 mm, ovoid to fusiform or subglobose, pale greenish to dull-stramineous or tan, sessile in an open to more often condensed spike 2–4 cm; bracts inconspicuous, or the lowest one to about as long as the infl; pistillate scales lance-ovate, acuminate or shortly awn-pointed, narrower and shorter than the perigynia; perigynia lanceolate, very flat, 4–5.5 × 1.5–2 mm, 2.5–3 times as long as wide, much wider than the achene, several-nerved on both sides, wing-margined and serrulate, tapering gradually to the ill-defined flat beak; achene lenticular, 1.3–1.8 × 0.7–0.8 mm; 2n=60, 64, 68. Open swamps, wet meadows, and shores; Nf. to Fla., w. to B.C., Oreg., and N.M.
