Plants perennial, cespitose, 30-120 cm; rhizomes absent. Culms arching, leafy, drooping tipped, ± terete, ribbed, slender. Principal leaves exceeded by culm; blades spreading to ascending, narrowly linear, proximally flat, 2-3.5 mm wide, apex trigonous, tapering. Inflorescences: clusters of spikelets 3-6, progressively wider-spaced proximally, narrow, elongate; leafy bracts slender, mostly exceeding clusters. Spikelets red brown, lanceoloid, 5-7 mm, apex acuminate; fertile scales narrowly ovate, 4-5 mm, apex acuminate, midrib included or short excurrent. Flowers: perianth bristles 6, exceeding tubercle, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits (1-)2-3(-4) per spikelet, 3-3.2 mm; body brown, narrowly oblong-ellipsoid, flattened, 2 × 0.8-1 mm; surface strongly transversely wavy rugose, vertically finely striate between ridges; tubercle compressed, narrowly triangular-subulate, 1 mm.

Fruiting summer-fall. Sands, peats, clays, and silts of moist meadows, shores of ponds, flatwoods, disturbed low areas; 0-300 m; Ala., Ark., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tex., Va.

Vahl Cespitose, to 1 m; lvs flat, 2-5 mm wide; infl of 2-6 loosely branched elongate cymes on filiform peduncles; spikelets lanceolate, 4-6 mm, castaneous, with 2-5 fls and 1-4 frs; bristles 6, stiffly erect, antrorsely barbellate, surpassing the tubercle; achenes flat, brown, narrowly elliptic-obovate, 1.7-2.1 mm, half as wide; transversely strongly ridged; tubercle flat, 0.7-1 mm. Moist acid soil on the coastal plain or occasionally inland; se. Va. to Ga. and Tex.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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