Annual, or perennial from short, slender rhizomes, very slender, to 8 dm; main blades 2–4 mm wide, sometimes hairy; cymes (1)2–4, the lateral remote; pistillate scales lanceolate to ovate, acute or acuminate; achene subglobose, white or sordid-gray, 1.5–2 mm thick, minutely apiculate, marked with narrow ridges enclosing shallow, irregularly polygonal pits; hypogynium double, the inner 3-lobed, resembling a calyx, each lobe oblong and closely appressed to the glabrous or minutely hairy achene. Damp sandy soil and pine-barrens; tropical Amer. and s. U.S., n. mainly along the coast to Mass., and inland to sw. Mich., e. Wis., and Mo. (S. r. var. pubescens; S. muhlenbergii; S. setacea, misapplied)
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