Plants cespitose in clumps of fewer than 40 culms. Culms erect, 35-140 cm; vegetative culms few, inconspicuous, usually fewer than 12 leaves, not strikingly 3-ranked, leaves clustered at apex. Leaves: sheaths usually with white intervenal areas abaxially, conspicuously green-veined adaxially nearly to collar, Y-shaped hyaline area at collar, adaxially firm, summits truncate and prolonged to 2 mm beyond collar, rounded, proximal sheath loose, smooth; distal ligules 2-5.5 mm; blades 3-7 per fertile culm, 20-65 cm × 2.2-6(-6.5) mm. Inflorescences erect to arching, compact to open, green, 1.5-5 cm × 5-16 mm; proximal internode 3.5-10(-11.5) mm; 2d internode 2-8 mm; proximal bracts scalelike with bristle tips shorter than or equaling inflorescences. Spikes 4-10, overlapping to distinct, globose to ellipsoid, 7-13 × 4-7 mm, base rounded or occasionally tapered, apex obtuse to rounded. Pistillate scales white-hyaline, with green midstripe, ovate, 2.1-3.3 mm, much shorter by 0.7-1.6 mm and narrower than perigynia, margins hyaline or pale, sometimes involute, apex obtuse to acute. Perigynia 15-80 on larger spikes, spreading, green distally, conspicuously 4+-veined on each face, narrowly to broadly ovate, plano-convex, 2.7-4.1 × 1.3-2.3 mm, 0.35-0.5 mm thick, margin flat, including wing 0.25-0.45 mm wide, smooth; beak pale green at tip, flat, ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with conspicuous white-hyaline margin, distance from beak tip to achene 1.2-2.2 mm. Achenes elliptic, 1.3-1.6 × 0.9-1.2 mm, 0.35-0.5 mm thick. 2n = 68. Fruiting early summer. Open, often wet, woods, thickets, meadows, and roadsides; 0-1600 m; Ont., Que.; Ark., Conn., Del., D.C., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Kans., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Pa., R.I., S.Dak., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis.