Diminutive, tufted annual to 1.5 dm; lvs slender, spreading- recurved, less than 1 mm wide, often stiffly short-hairy; ligule wanting; scapes slender, wiry, subterete; spikelets 5-10 mm, linear-elliptic to lance-ovoid, 3-8 in a dense terminal cluster subtended by several long, slender invol bracts; scales lance-ovate or lance-oblong, glabrous, with an often slightly spreading mucro; stamen 1; anther less than 0.5 mm; style bifid, much longer than the achene, smooth or merely papillate; achene lenticular, thick, obovate, 0.5-0.7 mm, rather coarsely cellular-reticulate in vertical rows; 2n=20. Weedy in fine soil in moist places; trop. Amer., n. irregularly to N.J., Ky., Ill., and Kans
Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.