Plants perennial, cespitose, 40-100 cm; rhizomes absent. Culms stiffly erect to ascending, linear, leafy toward base, sharply trigonous, angles scabrid. Leaves shorter than culm; basal leaves forming strong rosette, short linear, flat, 3-5 mm wide, distal more widely spaced, narrower, apex short acuminate, trigonous. Inflorescences: spikelet clusters 1(-2), if 2 then closely set; terminal cluster mostly dense, hemispheric; proximalmost leafy bract subulate, much exceeding clusters. Spikelets dark red brown, ovoid, (4-)5-6 mm, apex acute; fertile scales ovate, mostly 4-4.5 mm, apex excurved cuspidate. Flowers: bristles 12, reaching to or slightly beyond tubercle tip, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits 1-2 per spikelet, 3-3.5(-3.7) mm; body dark brown with paler center, dull, broadly ellipsoid-lenticular, 2-2.5 × 1.8-2 mm, smooth, margins flowing to tubercle; tubercle flat, concavely triangular, 0.7-1(-1.2) mm.

Fruiting spring-fall. Sandy peats in low savannas, pine flatwoods, seeps, and bogs; 0-100 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C.