Plants small to medium-sized. Rhizome erect or creeping, blackish brown, nodes and roots with long yellowish brown trichomes or glabrous. Aerial stem annual, monomorphic, with branches often clumped at base of aerial stems, 20-50(-60) cm tall, 1.5-2 mm in diam. at middle, green, but those of lower 1 or 2 nodes blackish brown, not lustrous; internodes 2-4 cm. Main stem 4-7-ridged; ridges arc-shaped abaxially and glabrous or with small cross grains; sheath tubes long, narrow, lower portion grayish green, upper portion light brown; back of sheath with a shallow groove; sheath teeth 4-7, blackish brown, lanceolate, membranous at margin, acuminate at apex, persistent. Lateral branches robust, up to 20 cm, terete to complanate, 4-6-ridged, glabrous or with small pale cross grains; sheath teeth 4-6, grayish green, lanceolate, thinly leathery, persistent. Strobilus ellipsoid or terete, 0.6-2.5 cm, 4-6 mm in diam., apex blunt; stalk prolonged when mature, 0.8-1.2 cm. 2n = 216.

Source: [
• 1
]. 

Aerial stems monomorphic, green, branched or unbranched, 20--80 cm; hollow center small, to 1/3 stem diam.; vallecular canals nearly as large. Sheaths elongate, 4--9 × 2--5 mm; teeth dark, 5--10, narrow, 2--5 mm, margins white, scarious. Branches when present only from midstem nodes, spreading, hollow; ridges 4--6; valleys rounded; 1st internode of each branch shorter than subtending stem sheath; sheath teeth narrow. 2 n =216.

Source: [
• 2
]. 

"Stems annual, all alike, 2–8 dm, deeply 5–10-sulcate, smooth to the touch but with minute transverse ridge-wrinkles on the angles, the stomates in a single broad band in each furrow, the central cavity small, less than 1/3 the diameter of the stem, about the size of the vallecular cavities; sheaths green, 5–10 mm, rather loose, with persistent teeth, these 3–7 mm, black or dark brown at least in part, with evident, often rather broad, pale and hyaline margins; branches few and irregular to numerous and whorled at the middle and upper nodes, 5–6-angled, simple, the first internode shorter than the associated stem-sheath; cone pedunculate, 1–3.5 cm, blunt, deciduous. Streambanks, wet meadows, and marshes; circumboreal, in Amer. s. to Pa., Ill., N.D., and Wash."

Source: [
• 3
]. 

10-70 cm boyunda çokyıllık otsu bitkiler. Rizomlar dik veya yükselici, siyahımsı kahverengi, tüysüz veya tüylü; tüyler sarımsı kahverengi. Ana gövde biryıllık, tek biçimli, nadiren düğümlerde dallanmış (yan gövde), 0,2- 0,4 cm çapında, açık yeşil, 4-8 oluklu; oluklar belirgin şekilde derin; kın yeşil, 0,5-1 cm uzunluğunda; dişler gövdedeki oluk sayısı kadar, mızraksı, zarımsı kenarlı, bir omurgalı, sipsivri, siyahımsı kahverengi, kalıcı. Yan gövdeler dallanmamış, yeşil, 4-20 cm uzunluğunda, 4 oluklu. Ana gövdedeki öz boşluğu gövdenin yarısı çapında. Kozalak kahverengi, yeşil gövdenin üzerinde, uçta tek, eliptik veya silindirik, 0,8-30 × 0,4-0,6 cm.