Stems 2-8 dm, slender, smooth, solitary or few together from long, dark, scaly sympodial rhizomes; basal sheaths persistent, reddish to brownish; lvs 2-6 mm wide, the uppermost nonbracteal one with a sheath 2-10 cm; terminal spike staminate, 0.5-7 cm, on a peduncle 3-10 cm; pistillate spikes 1-4, short-cylindric, 1.5-4.5 נ1.5-3 cm, pedunculate, not crowded, their subtending bracts leafy, 10-30 cm, basally sheathing; pistillate scales 4.5-6.5 mm, lance-ovate, awnless; perigynia 10-30, smooth and shiny, strongly multinerved, 10-14 נ3.5-6 mm, rounded at base, with a conic beak 4.5-7 mm, the teeth smooth; achene 2.5-3.5 נ1.7-2 mm, widest near the middle, broadly stipitate, trigonous with ±flat faces and somewhat thickened angles; style persistent and becoming bony, strongly contorted near the base. Wet woods and swamps, chiefly on the coastal plain; N.J. to Fla. and Tex., n. in the Mississippi Valley to s. Ind.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.
A southern species which reaches its northwestern limit in southern Indiana where it is infrequent in low open woods, flat woods, and cypress swamps, mostly in the unglaciated area.
