Plants cespitose. Culms acutely angled, 45-140 cm, scabrous. Leaves: basal sheaths red-brown or brown; sheaths of proximal leaves bladeless, scabrous, fronts red-brown to copper-brown, spots absent, indistinctly ladder-fibrillose; blades 12-55 cm × 4-10.5 mm. Inflorescences: peduncle of proximal spike 0.6-6.1 cm; proximal bract longer than inflorescence, 1.9-9.5 mm wide. Spikes 2-5 pistillate, 1-3 staminate, pendent; proximal pistillate spike 2.4-10.4 cm × 3-8.4 mm, base cuneate to acuminate. Pistillate scales pale brown to copper-brown, 3.1-8.2 mm (including awn), midvein reaching apex, apex of body acuminate or, rarely, truncate, awned. Perigynia ascending, pale brown, 0-5-veined abaxially, scarcely inflated, loosely enclosing achenes, ovoid to ellipsoid, 1.9-4.2 × 1.1-2.3 mm, dull, apex acute or obtuse, glabrous; beak 0.1-0.3 mm. Achenes variously constricted. 2n = 66, 68. Fruiting Jun-Aug. Swamps, floodplain forests, wet meadows, marshes, bogs, stream edges, margins of lakes and ponds, roadside ditches; 0-2100 m; St. Pierre and Miquelon; N.B., N.S., Nunavut, Ont., P.E.I., Que.; Conn., Ga., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.