Rhizomes long creeping, blackish brown, 3-6 mm thick, terminated by a tuber; tuber globose to depressed obovoid, 2-3 × 3-4 cm, woody, covered with blackish to purplish brown membranous broad scales. Culms solitary from a tuber, 0.6-1.5 m tall, sharply 3-angled, smooth. Leaves as long as or overtopping culm; sheath 5-20 cm, front with veins nearly to summit (i.e., lacking veinless area); blade broadly linear, 5-10 mm wide, ± stiff, margin scabrous. Involucral bracts 3 or 4, leaflike, usually longer than inflorescence. Inflorescence a simple anthela; rays 3-8, unequal, to 7 mm, smooth, each terminated by a single spikelet or a cluster of 2 or 3(or 4) spikelets. Spikelets rust-colored brown, ovoid to oblong, 1-2 × 0.5-0.8(-1) cm, many flowered. Glumes rust-colored brown, densely imbricate, oblong, ca. 7 mm, membranous, abaxially minutely pubescent, 1-veined costa projected beyond apex forming a recurved 2-3 mm scabrous awn, apex 2-cleft and lacerate. Perianth bristles 6, almost as long as nutlet, retrorsely scabrous. Stamens 3; anthers linear, ca. 4 mm. Style slender; stigmas 3. Nutlet grayish brown, obovoid, 3-sided, base cuneate-attenuate, apex contracted to a conic short beak. Fl. and fr. May-Jul.
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