Plants densely cespitose; rhizomes appearing elongate only in old clumps. Culms 30-100 cm; vegetative culms few, inconspicuous, with fewer than 15(-17) leaves, not strikingly 3-ranked. Leaves: sheaths adaxially white-hyaline, summits U-shaped to truncate, sometimes prolonged 1-2 mm beyond collar, not puckered, finely papillose; distal ligules 2.5-4.8 mm; blades 3-6 per fertile culm, 14-32 cm × 1.5-3 mm. Inflorescences compact to open, occasionally elongate and arching or nodding, reddish brown or straw colored, 1.5-5 cm × 7-15 mm; proximal internode 5-15 mm; 2d internode 3-7 mm; proximal bracts scalelike with bristle tips shorter than inflorescences. Spikes (4-)6-8(-10), distinct, ovoid, 7-15 × 5-9 mm, base rounded, apex rounded or nearly acute. Pistillate scales light yellow-brown with paler midvein, lance-subulate or lanceolate, occasionally broadly lanceolate, (3.2-)3.4-3.8(-4.2) mm, 0.2-1.3 mm shorter than perignyium beaks, narrower than perigynia, margins white-hyaline, 0.1-0.3 mm wide, apex acute. Anthers 1.3-2.6 mm. Perigynia 15-80 in larger spikes, ascending, light green to straw colored, conspicuously 5-9-veined abaxially, veinless or faintly 1-5-veined adaxially, broadly ovate to ovate-orbiculate, plano-convex, 3.3-5 × 2.3-3.5 mm, 0.5-0.8 mm thick, irregular, margin flat, including wing 0.4-0.8 mm wide, with 1-2 veins in yellowish wing, smooth; beak red-brown at tip, flat, 0.7-1.6(-1.8) mm, ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture ± conspicuous, distance from beak tip to achene 1.8-3.1 mm. Achenes ovate or orbiculate, 1.4-1.8 × 1.1-1.5 mm, 0.5-0.7 mm thick. 2n = 70, 74.

Fruiting early-mid summer. Dry sands, gravels, rocky places, meadows, roadsides, on acidic substrates; 50-600 m; Man., N.B., Ont., Que.; Conn., Maine, Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., N.Y., Ohio, Vt., Wis.