Plants perennial, cespitose, to 150 cm; rhizomes stoloniferous, slender. Culms lax, leafy, wandlike, ± terete to obscurely angled, slender. Leaves ascending, exceeded by culms; blades flat, 4–7(–10) mm wide, apex trigonous, short acuminate, tapering. Inflorescences: spikelet clusters 4–6 or more, equidistant along culm on ascending peduncles, branches capillary, divaricate, clusters loose, diffuse, rounded. Spikelets light brown, ellipsoid to lanceoloid or ovoid, 2.5–3.5 mm, apex acute; fertile scales ovate, (1.5–)2–3 mm, apex rounded or acute, midrib forming apiculus. Flowers: perianth bristles 6, longest exceeding tubercle, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits 2–several per spikelet, 1.3–1.5 mm; body pale brown, broadly obovoid, tumidly biconvex, 1.1–1.2 × 1–1.1 mm; surfaces transversely sharply wavy rugulose, intervals with vertical, rectangular, shallow alveolae; tubercle depressed conic, slightly compressed, 0.2–0.3(–0.4) mm, edges setulose.
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Stout, erect, commonly 1 m or more, loosely rhizomatous, with 1–few stems together; lvs numerous, flat, to 1 cm wide; infl of 4–8 often overlapping cymes, each decompound, with much elongate, widely divaricate or even reflexed, capillary branches, each terminating in a single ovoid spikelet 3–4 mm, the scales soon falling and exposing the 3–10 persistent achenes; bristles 6, fragile, antrorsely barbellate, surpassing the tubercle; achenes pale brown, obovate, 0.9–1.2 mm, nearly or quite as wide, transversely ridged; tubercle depressed-conic, 0.2–0.3 mm. Swamps on the coastal plain; se. Va. to Fla., La., and the W.I.
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