Plants 20-40 cm, copiously villous-ciliate with spreading hairs 0.5-1 mm on culms, leaves, and bracts.

Fruiting summer-fall. Dry to mostly wet pinelands, savannas, mesic woods, meadows, bogs, and prairies; 0-500 m; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Ky., La., Md., Mass., Miss., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Va.; Mexico.

The illegitimate name Scleria caroliniana Willdenow has sometimes been used for this taxon. Scleria pauciflora var. caroliniana may be found in more disturbed sites than S. pauciflora var. pauciflora.

Perennial, tufted, grass-like herb 20 cm - 0.4 m tall

Leaves: three-ranked. Sheaths occasionally reddish, scarcely winged or not, weakly ribbed, spreading-hairy. Ligules short, blunt to triangular. Blades stiff, 1 - 3 mm wide, shorter than or equal to inflorescence, linear with a blunt tip, ribbed, midvein prominent, long-hairy.

Inflorescence: usually a solitary, stalkless bundle of spikelets, terminal (sometimes also axillary), subtended by a leaf-like bract. Bract 2 - 5 cm long, spreading-hairy. Axillary clusters (when present) one or two, remote, growing on thread-like stalks.

Flowers: either male or female, borne on the same plant (monoecious), minute, subtended by a floral scale, lacking sepals and petals. Stamens one to three, exserted. Anthers 2 - 2.5 mm long. Pistil one. Style linear, two- to three-cleft.

Fruit: a one-seeded achene, white to gray, sometimes also or only having black markings, 1 - 2.5 mm wide, spherical to rarely egg-shaped with a narrowly constricted base and umbonate (bearing an umbo, or protuberance) apex, three-sided, bumpy, subtended by a disk-like structure (hypogynium). Hypogynium brownish, with six rounded tubercles.

Culm: arising from hard, knotty rhizomes, usually tufted, upright, slender, three-sided, solid, and very hairy with hairs 0.5 - 1 mm long.

Spikelets: bisexual or male, 3 - 6 mm long. Male scales lance-shaped, membranous. Female scales egg- to lance-shaped with a pointed tip.

Similar species: No information at this time.

Flowering: June to September

Habitat and ecology: Rare in the Chicago Region, where it grows on moist marsh borders.

Occurence in the Chicago region: native

Etymology: Scleria comes from the Greek word scleria, meaning hardness, referring to the fruit. Pauciflora means few-flowered.

Author: The Morton Arboretum

Fassett (Rhodora 35: 202. 1933) writes that two collections from Miller and three from Dune Park in the herbarium of the University of Wisconsin named Scleria pauciflora Muhl. should be referred to the variety. I have seen these specimens and I agree with Fassett. I have this variety also from Jasper County.