Plants perennial, cespitose or single, 30-70(-80) cm; rhizomes absent. Culms erect or excurved, lax, leafy, slender to wiry. Leaves overtopped by culm; basal leaves spreading, twisted, distal longer, erect or ascending; blades proximally flat, 1-3 mm wide, apex trigonous, subulate, tapering. Inflorescences: spikelet clusters 1-4, proximalmost widely spaced, spikelets elongate, open, turbinate or compact lobed hemispheric; branches erect to ascending; leafy bracts setaceous, exceeding proximal clusters, exceeded by distal clusters. Spikelets mostly dark brown to brown, globose to broadly ovoid, (2-)2.5-3(-4) mm, apex acute; fertile scales broadly ovate to orbiculate, 1.7-2.3 mm, apex obtuse to rounded or emarginate, midrib mostly included, sometimes excurrent as apiculus. Flowers: perianth bristles 6 or less, antrorsely barbellate, of various lengths. Fruits 1-3 per spikelet, 1.5-1-8 mm (-2 mm in var. pinetorum); body tumidly biconvex; surfaces transversely wavy rugose, intervals of vertically rectangular alveolae or transverse rugosity indistinct, surface isodiametrically alveolate or cancellate; tubercle short conic to patelliform apiculate.