Plants robust, to 2.5 m; leaves and inflorescences emergent. Leaves erect, keeled but sometimes distally flattened, to 2.5 m ? 6--20 mm. Inflorescences: rachis usually branched, erect; bracts ascending, not basally inflated; pistillate heads (1--)2--6(--8), axillary, not contiguous, peduncled on main rachis, sessile on branches, 1.5--5 cm diam. in fruit; staminate heads 10--40+, on main rachis and branches, lower proximal not contiguous, distal often crowded. Flowers: tepals often with dark subapical spot, entire to subentire; stigmas usually 2, often some flowers in head with 1, linear. Fruits straw-colored, darkening with age, somewhat lustrous, sessile, obpyramidal, body 3--7-faceted proximal to prominent shoulder, depressed-truncate to somewhat rounded or tapering distally, not constricted at equator, body 5--10 mm and often nearly as wide, gradually or abruptly beaked; beak straight, 2--4 mm, tepals attached at base, reaching to shoulder, about equaling body. Seeds 1--2(3), bistigmatic flowers often with 2, unistigmatic flowers with 1. 2n = 30.
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Stout, erect, 5–12 dm; lvs to 8 dm, 6–12 mm wide, scarcely dilated at base, the bracts similar but shorter; infl branched, the branches from the lower axils with retuse, or abruptly rounded to the stout 3 mm beak; stigmas 2, linear; ovules, seeds, and locules 2; 2n=30. In mud or shallow water; Que. and N.S. to B.C., s. to Va., Ind., Okla. and Calif.
A stout erect plant that grows in mud or shallow water. It grows 2.5 m tall. The leaves are erect and 80 cm long by 1-2 cm wide. The flowering shoot is branched.
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