Culms stout, 30-100 cm. high, purplish at the base; leaves numerous, the lower clustered, the leaf blades 3-10 mm. wide, glabrous, coriaceous, stiff, long-attenuate; inflorescence compound, 20-60 cm. long, the lower branches in 2's or 4's, the upper simple; spikes numerous, androgynous, narrowly linear-cylindric, 3-12 cm. long, 3.5-5 mm. wide, the pistillate part rather loosely 20-to 50-flowered; scales lance-ovate, usually rough-awned, purplish-black; perigynia lanceolate, 3.5-4 mm. long, membranaceous, dull green, scarcely inflated, punctic-ulate, 2-ribbed and strongly few-nerved, short-stipitate, abruptly beaked, the beak excurved, 1-1.5 mm. long, bidentate, the teeth stiffish, scabrous within.
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