Plants tufted, 0.3-0.6 m tall, plant bases compact, without rhizomes or stolons. Culms unbranched terete, without a central cavity, more or less rugose, olivaceous, 0.3-0.6 m long, 0.3-0.5 mm in diameter. Leaf-sheaths 4-7, bicoloured with the lower 2/3 green and striate, the upper 1/3 golden brown, 10-12 mm long, acute, the mucro penicellate, ca. 1 mm long, sheath-margins the same texture as the body; sheaths caducous at anthesis, leaving only a ring at the nodes. Male inflorescences terminal on the culms, racemose, cylindrical, 15-25 x 6-8 mm; spathes persistent, slightly shorter than spikelets, chartaceous, narrowly ovate, acute. Spikelets sessile, imbricate, 1-5, erect, oblong, apically rounded, 6-10 x 5 mm, with 20-30 flowers; bracts taller than flowers, 4-7 mm long, very narrowly ovate, acute with a short mucro, margins entire, hyaline-membranous with a brown midrib and basal part. Flowers 3-3.5 mm long, glabrous, very dark brown; outer whorl of tepals, ovate, acute, chartaceous, less than half as long as inner whorl, lateral tepals keeled; inner tepals oblong, acute, 3-3.5 mm long, cartilaginous and almost black. Anthers with a single cell, 1.5 mm long, dehiscing inside the flowers; pistillode minute. Female inflorescences 15-25 x 10-15 mm, with a single spikelet; spathes shorter than the spikelets, persistent, chartaceous, narrowly elliptical, acute, to 15 mm long, the apical third pale brown and soon decaying, the basal 2/3 olivaceous, striate, persistent; spikelets with ca. 30 flowers, obovate, apically rounded, 12-17 mm long; bracts taller than and obscuring the flowers, 12-14 mm long, linear-ovate, acute with a small apical mucro, hyaline except for a brown midrib and somewhat widened brown area near the base. Flowers 2.5-3 mm long, glabrous; outer tepals ovate, acute, 1.8-2 mm long, cartilaginous, outer lateral tepals keeled; inner tepals oblong, acute, rounded on the back, 2.4-3 mm long. Staminodes present ovary with three free styles and three dehiscent locules.
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