J'ai vu quelquefois ces deux plantes confondues l'une avec l'autres dans les herbiers.

The spikelets are lanceolate, rather loose, 6–10 millimetres (0.2–0.4 in) long, showing on all sides of the umbel their sharp apices; they contain sixteen, twenty, and thirty flowers.

The scales are ovoid, truncated at their base, briefly acuminate at the top, membranous, a slightly undulating and torn at the edges.

Cyperus dives grows in the wet fields of the Delta: it is grown for cutting, to make mats from the stems split into strips.

Cyperus alopecuroides does not have smooth spikelets; they are not lanceolate, but ovoid; their scales are not very tight, and fold inwards by the edges when drying; the styles are bifid.