Rhizome short, obliquely ascending with curving stolons. Culms 40-50 cm tall, trigonous, smooth, rigid, clothed at base with bladed sheaths but sterile culm with purple-red bladeless sheaths. Leaves shorter than culm, blades gray-green, linear, 2-4 mm wide, margins revolute. Involucral bracts glumelike, lowest one setaceous, sheathless. Spikes 3-5; terminal spike male, clavate, 1-1.5 cm; remaining spikes female, oblong, 5-15 mm, lower spikes with peduncles 5-10 mm, upper sessile. Female glumes blackish purple-red, ovate, 2-2.2 × 1.8-2 mm, 1-veined, margins broadly white hyaline, apex rounded. Utricles purple-red punctate above, equaling glume, broadly obovate or suborbicular, plano-convex, 2-2.2 × 1.8-2 mm, membranous, densely minutely papillose, nerveless, base shortly stipitate, apex rounded, with very short beak, orifice emarginate. Nutlets gray-brown, tightly enveloped, broadly obovate, 1.5-1.8 × ca. 1.5 mm; style base not thickened; stigmas 2.
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