Plants perennial; rhizomes sometimes not evident, 0.3–0.5 mm thick, internodes 3–11 mm, scales not evident. Culms sometimes arched, smooth or obscurely 4- or 5-angled or -ridged, terete or slightly compressed, 6–25 cm × 0.15–0.3 mm, soft to firm. Leaves: distal leaf sheaths persistent, red proximally, colorless distally, closely sheathing, apex blunt. Spikelets ovoid, 2–6 × 1–2 mm, apex acute; scales 5–15, 5 per mm of rachilla, bright red-brown, midrib region green to stramineous, ovate, 1.5–1.7 × 1 mm, midrib keeled to obscure, apex blunt to acute. Flowers: perianth bristles absent; anthers 0.5–1 × 0.2 mm. Achenes with angles plus longitudinal ridges ca. 8–9, obscure to rather prominent, obovoid to obpyriform, much less than 2 times longer than wide, 0.55–0.6 × 0.3–0.4 mm, trabeculae 20–30, rather obscure and crowded. Tubercles brownish to whitish, pyramidal to depressed, 0.1–0.15 × 0.1–0.2 mm.

Fruiting late winter–spring (Feb–Apr). Wet soil of ponds, marshes, grasslands, ditches; of conservation concern; 10–200 m; Tex.

Eleocharis reverchonii perhaps should be treated as a variety or subspecies of E. acicularis. One collection (three sheets at KSC) from Calhoun county in southeastern Texas is apparently the only known example within E. subg. Scirpidium with proliferous spikelets.