Plants annual(?), often mat-forming, often stoloniferous, sometimes entirely vegetative; rhizomes absent. Culms often arching, sometimes spotted or streaked red-brown, quadrangular or broadly elliptic, sulcate or not, 0.5–25(–30) cm × 0.1–0.4 mm, soft. Leaves: distal leaf sheaths persistent or disintegrating, stramineous, green, red-brown, or spotted or streaked red-brown, membranous, translucent, apex obtuse or acute. Spikelets: basal spikelets usually present, pistillate; often proliferous, ovoid, ellipsoid, or linear, clearly laterally compressed, 2.3–6.9 × 0.5–2 mm, apex acute, proximal scale empty, amplexicaulous, similar to floral scales (midribs sometimes more prominent and sometimes slightly prolonged beyond lamina); subproximal scale with a flower; floral scales clearly distichous, 3–9, 3–4 per mm of rachilla, yellowish, pale brown, or red-brown, spotted, streaked, or mottled red-brown, narrowly ovate to oblong, (1.5–)2–5 × 0.4–0.6(–1.2) mm, membranous, apex rounded, obtuse or rarely acute, midribs keeled. Flowers: perianth bristles 3–7, incurved, colorless, white, or red-brown, shorter than or equaling achene; spinules sparse, retrorse, sharply acute; stamens 3; anthers 1.4–2.2 mm; styles 3-fid. Achenes whitish or greenish, spotted dark green, obovoid, trigonous, angles prominent, 0.6–0.9 × 0.4–0.6 mm, apex constricted proximal to tubercle, smooth to finely cancellate at 10–20X. Tubercles pale to red-brown, pyramidal, trigonous, 0.2–0.3(–0.4) × 0.2–0.5 mm.
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Low, tufted or mat-forming perennial with slender, wiry, often proliferous stems 3-20 cm, lacking rhizomes; spikelets flattened, linear to ovate, 3-6 mm, 3-8-fld, the scales distichous, linear, keeled, acute, red-brown; achene sharply trigonous, 1 mm, shining dark olive-brown, sometimes obscurely striolate, the tubercle pale, pyramidal and subulate-tipped; bristles shorter than the achene. Wet sandy soil in pine-barrens on the coastal plain; se. Va. to Fla. and La.
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