Erect from a stout rhizome, 5–15 dm, often emitting roots from submersed nodes; lower sheaths loose, shorter than the internodes, the upper tighter, usually exceeding the internodes, ciliate, sometimes hirsute; blades 1–3 dm × 5–15 mm, abruptly contracted at base; panicle 6–20 cm, slender, with appressed branches, the lower ones often remote; spikelets ± secund, short-pediceled, flattened-ovoid, 2.2–2.9 mm, the first glume half as long, somewhat gibbous at base; second glume and sterile lemma sharply veined, acute, the latter with a conspicuous palea; 2n=36. Swamps and ponds on the coastal plain; N.J. to Fla. and Tex.
A grass.