Scirpus stenophyllus Elliott, Sketch Bot. S. Carolina 1: 83. 1816; Dichroma caespitosa (Muhlenberg) Sprengel; D. cespitosum Muhlenberg; Fimbristylis stenophyllus (Elliott) Alain; Isolepis stenophyllus (Elliott) Torrey; Stenophyllus cespitosus (Muhlenberg) Rafinesque

Herbs, annual, densely cespitose, scapose. Culms (5–) 10–20 cm. Leaves 1/2–2/3 length of culms; sheaths brownish to stramineous, glabrous or scabrid along ribs; blades spreading-recurved, filiform, 0.5 mm wide, involute, margins and adaxial ribs hispidulous. Inflorescences: scapes erect to spreading, wiry, angularly ribbed, 0.6–1 mm thick, hispidulous; spikelets in dense, terminal, top-shaped to hemispheric involucrate heads, 1–1.5 cm wide; longer involucral bracts with setaceous blades many times exceeding heads, gradually dilating to scarious-bordered, entire sheaths. Spikelets usually greenish or dull brown, oblong to lance-ovoid, 3–5 mm; fertile scales ovate, keeled, 3–4 mm, abaxially hirtellous, midrib excurrent forming excurved mucro, scabrid. Flowers: stamens 1; anthers oblong, 0.5 mm. Achenes pale or gray brown, broadly trigonous obovoid, rather sharply 3-ribbed, 1 mm, faces flat or somewhat concave, finely transversely rugose; tubercle a depressed-conic button. 2n = 30.

Fruiting summer–fall. Moist sands or sandy peats of sandhill swales, fields, pineland savanna, and waste areas, often weedy; 0–200 m; Fla., Ga., N.C., S.C.; West Indies (Cuba).