Plants with culm bases thickened, contiguous; rhizomes of attached culm bases, knotty, stout, covered with dark fibers and chaff from old leaf bases. Leaves: leaf sheaths distally with at least some hairs; blades with margins distantly to closely scabrid, surfaces glabrous or densely hirtellous. Fertile scales totally or distally puberulent. Fruiting late spring-summer. Moist clays to sands or sandy peats, in prairies, savannas, glades, pinelands, acidic to basic sites; 0-1000 m; Ont.; Ala., Ark., Del., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Kans., Ky., La., Md., Mich., Miss., Mo., Nebr., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Ohio, Okla., S.C., Tenn., Tex., Utah, Va.