Rhizome short, stout, woody, forming very dense clumps. Stems densely tufted, erect, triquetrous (often very acutely so), rigid, scabrid on the angles above (see note), 30-180 cm by 2-4 mm, surrounded below the leaves by spadiceous, dark-nerved, bladeless sheaths and their fibrous remains. Leaves in the lower 1/4-1/3 of the stem, shorter to longer than the stem, very stiff, flat to conduplicate, long-acuminate, with very scabrous margins, pale green, 3-10 mm wide. Inflorescence a slender, oblong-cylindric, contracted, spike-like panicle, 5-25 by 1-2 cm; branches numerous, erect, often appressed or even partly adnate to the stems, upper crowded, lower approximate or slightly distant. Bracts inconspicuous, setaceous, lower sometimes as long as the branches, upper reduced to glumes. Spikelets very numerous, sessile, androgynous, ovoid or ovoid-lanceolate, few-flowered (male and female parts about equal in length), 4-8 mm long. Glumes ovate, acute, thin and translucent, with ciliolate margins, otherwise glabrous, slenderly nerved, ferrugineous to castaneous with hyaline margins, 2-3 mm long, the midrib often excurrent in a short mucro up to ½ mm long. Utricles ovate, plano-convex, with obtuse margins, coriaceous, 6-12-nerved dorsally, 3-6-nerved ventrally, glabrous, distinctly setulose-margined above, subpatent, stramineous to dark brown, rounded at the spongy-thickened base, shortly stipitate, subabruptly beaked, 2.5-3.5 by 1.25-2 mm; beak 0.5-1 mm long, bidentate, grooved on the back, with slightly oblique mouth. Nut ovate to obovate, compressed-biconvex, broadly stipitate, beakless or shortly beaked, 1.25-1.75 by c. 1 mm. Stigmas 2.
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Rhizomatous; stout, harsh and rigid, dark green. Culms (20)–30–75–(100) cm. × 3–6.5 mm., acutely trigonous, angles strongly scabrid above; basal sheaths shining, light to dark grey-brown. Lvs us. > culms, 3–7 mm. wide, channelled, stiff, tips almost pungent in young lvs, margins and keel very scabrid. Infl. an elongated erect, stiff panicle 6–25 × 1–2 cm., interrupted below, branchlets us. < 3.5 cm. long, more crowded above, appressed to infl. axis. Spikes , 5–6 mm. long, red-brown, ovoid, androgynous, male fls terminal. Glumes slightly < utricles, ovate, acute, or with a short scabrid mucro, brown with lighter brown midrib. Utricles c. 2.5–3.5 × 1.5 mm., plano-convex, conspicuously many-nerved, dark brown; tapered to a beak 1–1.5 mm. long, margins distinctly toothed, orifice bifid; sharply constricted to a narrow stipe 2–4 mm. long. Stigmas 2. Nut c. 1.5 mm. long, plano-convex, oblong-obovoid, light or dark brown.
Stout, harshly scabrid, rigid tussocks to ± 80 cm high. Inflorescence an erect stiff panicle 6-25 cm long with appressed branches ± 3 cm long. Spikes numerous, sessile, red-brown, male flowers at top. Utricles many-nerved. Stigmas 2.
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