Plants perennial, cespitose, 100-180 cm; rhizomes often present, short, scaly. Culms erect to ascending, leafy, slender, angular. Leaves exceeded by culm; blades linear, proximally flat, 3-6 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous, subulate. Inflorescences of terminal and axillary clusters, 3-5, proximalmost widely spaced, turbinate or lobed, fascicles dense, branches ascending; leafy bracts exceeding all but proximalmost clusters. Spikelets rich red brown, ovoid, (4-)5-6(-7) mm, apex acuminate; fertile scales ovate, (3.5-)4-5 mm, apex acuminate, midrib short or long excurrent. Flowers: perianth bristles 6, reaching past tubercle, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits mostly 3-4(-7) per spikelet, 3 mm with pedicellar joint and tubercle; body pale yellow brown, obovoid lenticular, 1.4-1.7 × 1.4 × 1.5; surfaces transversely finely wavy rugulose, intervals vertically rectangular alveolate; pedicellar joint 0.3-0.6 mm; tubercle compressed, triangular acuminate, 0.5-0.6 (-1) mm, margin setulose. Fruiting summer-fall or all year (south). Sands and peats of swamps, marshes, interdunal swales, low meadows, savannas; 0-200 m; Ala., Fla., Ga., N.C., S.C.; West Indies (Bahamas, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Jamaica).