Plants densely cespitose. Culms often nodding, 20-90 cm, vegetative culms inconspicuous with few leaves clustered at apex. Leaves: sheaths abaxially hyaline, adaxially whitish mottled, summits U-shaped, shortly prolonged less than 2.8 mm beyond collar, smooth or sometimes papillose (at 30X); distal ligules 1-2 mm; blades 3-5 per fertile culm, 15-35 cm × 1.3-2.5(-3) mm. Inflorescences often flexible and nodding, open, with elongate spikes, brown, (2-)2.5-5 cm × 7-10 mm; proximal internode (4-)7-17(-20) mm; 2d internode (3-)6-10 mm; proximal bracts scalelike or to 1(-4) cm; rachis usually thin and wiry. Spikes 3-8, distant or loosely aggregated, ovoid to globose, 4-10 × 3.5-6 mm, base tapered or clavate, apex rounded. Pistillate scales white-hyaline or pale brown with green to brown midstripe not reaching scale tip, proximal scales ovate, 2.3-3.3 mm, shorter by 0-1.6 mm and narrower than perigynia, apex obtuse on proximal scales, acute on distal. Perigynia erect to ascending, brown, conspicuously 5-7-veined abaxially, veinless or faintly 3-7-veined adaxially, ovate to broadly ovate, plano-convex, 2.8-4(-4.5) × 1.4-1.9(-2) mm, 0.4-0.5 mm thick, 2-2.3 times as long as wide, margin flat, including wing 0.1-0.5 mm wide, ciliate-serrulate at least distally; beak spreading, appressed or ascending; straw colored to reddish brown at tip, flat, ± ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture inconspicuous, distance from beak tip to achene 1.3-2.7 mm. Achenes ovate, 1.3-1.7 × 0.85-1.1 mm, 0.5 mm thick. 2n = 52, 54, 56.
Much like no. 74 [Carex bebbii (L. H. Bailey) Fernald]; lvs 1.5-2.5 mm wide; spikes mostly 4-8(-12), in a usually moniliform or interrupted spike 1.5-5 cm, the individual spikes a little stouter and more ragged- looking than in C. bebbii; perigynia 2.8-4(-4.3) נ1.4-1.9 mm, (1.5-)1.7-2.5(-3) times as long as wide, planoconvex or flattened, achene 1.3-2.1 נ0.9-1.3 mm; 2n=56. Moist or wet soil, meadows, and thickets; Que. and Me. to N.C., w. to Mo., S.D., and Mont.
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.