Rhizome stout, clothed with fibrous remains of old scales. Flowering culms both central and arising from axils of leaves, 30-40 cm tall, compressed, smooth, surrounded at base by pale brown bladeless sheaths or their fibrous remains. Leaves shorter or longer than culm, blades 6-12 mm wide, soft, flat, smooth, margins scabrid. Involucral bracts shorter than spike, sheathed, sheaths 1-3.5 mm, lower involucral bracts shortly leaflike, upper ones bristlelike. Spikes 4 or 5; terminal spike male, cylindric, 30-60 × 1.5-2 mm; lateral spikes female, remotely spaced, cylindric, 2-3.5 cm, ca. 4 mm thick, densely flowered; peduncles 1-4.5 cm, lower ones slightly exserted, upper ones enclosed in involucral bract sheaths. Female glumes oblong, 2-2.5 mm, membranous laterally, costa with 3 distinct veins and pale yellow-green, apex mucronate. Utricles nearly equaling glume, ovate, ca. 2.5 mm, sparsely puberulent, with many prominent veins, base nearly estipitate, apex shortly beaked, beak ca. 0.5 mm, recurved, emarginate at orifice. Nutlet brown at maturity, tightly enveloped, ovate, 1.5-2 mm, with faces slightly excavated in lower part, base nearly estipitate, apex abruptly contracted into a very short beak; style base thickened, miter-shaped, persistent; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Mar-Apr.
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