Rhizome short, cespitose, or shortly stoloniferous. Stems arising from basal leaf-axils, trigonous, smooth or sparsely scaberulous above, (15-)30-60 cm by ½-1 mm, bearing a few short-bladed, bract-like leaves. Basal leaves about as long as the stems, flat, with scabrid margins and under surface above, 3-10 mm wide; sheaths reddish brown to spadiceous, older fibrous. Spikelets 3-7, distant, erect or suberect; terminal spikelet male, linear, (1.5-)3-6 cm by 1.5-2 mm, lateral female or with a few male flowers at the top, lax-flowered, (1.5-)3-5 cm by 2.5-3.5 mm, on exserted, smooth or slightly scaberulous peduncles. Bracts vaginiform with a short blade or reduced to long, subampliate, bladeless sheaths. Glumes oblong or oblong-obovate, truncate or rounded at the erose-ciliate apex, translucent, whitish to brownish, 2.5-3 mm long, the 3-nerved centre excurrent in a short, hispidulous awn c. ½ mm long. Utricles fusiform, trigonous with flat faces, straight, membranous, suberect, strongly many-nerved, hispidulous especially above, greenish to light brown, 3-4 by c. 1 mm; beak conical, 1 mm long, bidenticulate. Nut ellipsoid to oblong-ellipsoid, triquetrous with shallowly concave faces, stoutly stipitate, contracted at the apex and re-expanded into a discoid, 73 mm broad annulus, c. 2 by 1 mm. Style-base pyramidally thickened. Stigmas 3.
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Rhizome stout, covered with fibrous remains of scales. Culms several to a clump, 30-60 cm tall, slender, smooth. Basal sheaths bladeless, purple-brown to dark brown, usually split into fibers. Leaves shorter or longer than culm, blades 3-10 mm wide, flat, leathery, stiff, scabrous along margins and on abaxial midvein. Involucral bracts sheathed, sheath 1-3.5 cm, lower involucral bracts leaflike, upper ones bristlelike, shorter than to nearly equaling subtending spike. Spikes 4 or 5; terminal spike male, linear-cylindric, 35-50 × 1.5-2 mm; lateral spikes female, linear-cylindric to cylindric, 20-40 × 1.5-3 mm, loosely flowered; peduncles slender, erect, 1.5-7 cm. Female glumes obovate-oblong, 2.5-3.5 mm, membranous, 1-3-veined green costa excurrent into a mucro, apex rounded. Utricle longer than glume, ovate-fusiform, 2.5-4 mm, puberulent or more densely pubescent, prominently many veined, base attenuate into a short stipe, apex attenuate into a short beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlet tightly enveloped, ovate, trigonous, 2-2.5 mm, apex discoid-annulate; style base thickened, persistent; stigmas 3.