Rhizome short, without stolons. Stems slender, erect, triquetrous, smooth or almost so, 25-75 cm by 1-1.5 mm. Leaves basal and often 1 higher up the stem, flat, weak, shorter than the stems, long-acuminate, scabrous on nerves and margins, 3-4 mm wide, lowest ones reduced to bladeless, reddish-brown sheaths. Spikelets 3-4(-5), erect, short-cylindric to cylindric, upper approximate, fastigiate, lowest often more or less distant; terminal spikelet male, or rarely gynaecandrous, subsessile, pale, (0.5-)1-2.5 cm by 2(-3) mm; lateral spikelets female, subsessile or lowest sometimes on a long, exserted peduncle, short-cylindric, obtuse, densely flowered, 1.5-2.5(-3) cm by 5-6 mm. Lowest bract foliaceous, overtopping the inflorescence, more or less sheathing, upper much shorter, not or hardly exceeding the inflorescence. Glumes ovate or oblong-ovate, obtuse, scarious, 1-2 mm long, whitish with 3-nerved green central stripe excurrent in a scabrous, ½-3.5 mm long awn. Utricles broadly ellipsoid to subglobose, obscurely trigonous, inflated, membranous, strongly many-ribbed, glabrous, straight, patent, dark olive-green to dark brown, contrasted against the white glumes, 3-4 by 1⅓-1¾ mm, suddenly contracted into a very short, bidenticulate beak. Nut obovoid, triquetrous, yellowish, 2.25-2.5 by 1 1/3-1 2/3 mm, with a very short, (sometimes indistinctly) bent stipe and beak. Style-base slightly thickened. Stigmas 3.
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