Plants perennial; rhizomes horizontal, nodulose. Culms sometimes in tufts, erect, slender, 30-50 cm, wiry, glabrous, trigonous, base somewhat swollen, brown. Leaves: sheaths purplish, wingless, weakly ribbed, glabrous or minutely hirsute; contra-ligules absent; blades linear or filiform, shorter than culms, resembling them, strongly keeled, 1-2 mm wide, glabrous or slightly scabrous on margins. Inflorescences terminal, 0.4-1 cm; fascicles 1, 4-10 mm wide, each with 1-5(-8) spikelets; bracts subtending inflorescence awl-shaped, 1-9(-11) cm, glabrous, appearing to be continuation of culm. Spikelets bisexual and staminate, 4-6(-7) mm; staminate scales lanceolate, membranous, pistillate scales ovate-lanceolate, acuminate. Achenes dull white or often light to dark gray, trigonous, ovoid, usually ribbed with 3 ridges extending from base along angles to apex, 2-3 mm, glabrous, base trigonous, pointed, 6-porose with 2 yellowish, granulose pits on each somewhat concave side, apex mucronate; hypogynium obsolete, reduced to minute brownish ring distal to pointed base.

Fruiting spring-summer. Wet, sandy, peaty soils in pinelands and savannas or moist, sandy waste areas, shallow standing water; 0-100 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., La., Miss., N.C., S.C., Tex.; West Indies (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica); Central America (Belize, Nicaragua).

The illegitimate name Scleria gracilis Elliott has been used for S. georgiana.