Scirpus subterminalis of Michigan Flora.

Usually submersed (except for tip of the fertile culm) in water up to 1.5 m deep in lakes, ponds, bog pools, rivers, and boggy ditches, growing on sand, marl, muck, or peat.

Numerous limp, hair-like leaves are produced when the plant is growing in water; these are contrasted with the similar appearing structures of Eleocharis acicularis, E. robbinsii, and Juncus militaris, with which this species may grow, in couplets 30–32 of Key A, to aquatic plants with all leaves floating or submersed. This is the most abundant of the deeper water sedges and rushes with hair-like submerged organs. Note most importantly that the submerged organs in the Eleocharis species are stems, not leaves with a ligule and sheath as in this species.

The long leaves of this species, sometimes a meter long or more, waving gently in a stream often baffle people paddling along rivers.