Plants 30-80 cm. Culms arching, stiff or lax, slender. Spikelets dark to pale brown, broadly ovoid to ovoid lanceoloid, mostly 2-2.5 mm. Flowers: perianth bristles rarely reach 2/3 length of fruit body. Fruit body indistinctly cross ridged, reticulate with broad, often isodiametric alveolae or lattices; tubercle depressed-conic to patelliform, apiculate, nearly as broad as truncate summit of fruit body.

Fruiting spring-fall or all year (south). Sandy savannas, clearings in pine flatwoods, moist sandy swales, bog margins, ponds, lakeshores; 0-200 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tex.; West Indies (Antilles); Central America.

Rhynchospora globularis var. pinetorum frequently shares habitat with var. globularis in Georgia and northern Florida and, apart from a slightly taller and stiffer habit, and slightly longer and (sometimes) paler spikelets, var. pinetorum looks like var. globularis in the field. An inspection of fruit reveals significant differences. Of similar length, shape, and thickness, the fruit body of var. pinetorum has a distinct, shallow surface network of subisodiametric lattices nearly level with frame, or alveolae more sunken and frame more raised. While the tubercle of most plants of var. globularis is evenly conic, the slightly longer tubercle of those in var. pinetorum is concave sided and sharper tipped.