Rhizome with long stolons. Culms laxly tufted, 20-70 cm tall, triquetrous, smooth or ± smooth, clothed with red-brown and bladeless sheaths at base, rudimentary sheaths usually disintegrating into reticulate fibers. Leaves shorter than culm, blades 2-3 mm wide, flat or plicate, ± stiff, scabrous on margins, rather long sheathed. Involucral bracts leafy, lowermost involucral bract nearly equaling inflorescence, shortly sheathed, upper ones rather short, nearly not sheathed. Spikes 3-5, usually 4; terminal 1-3 spikes male, slightly approximate, cylindric or lanceolate, uppermost one 2.5-3 cm, lower 1 or 2 usually rather short, nearly sessile; remaining spikes female, remote, cylindric or suboblong, 1.5-3.5 × 0.5-0.6 cm, densely many flowered, shortly pedunculate. Female glumes fuscous, ovate or narrowly ovate, ca. 3.5 mm, membranous, 3-veined, pale fuscous on margins and between veins, apex acuminate, mucronate or aristate, scabrous on margins of mucro or awn. Utricles dark red-brown, sometimes stramineous, obliquely patent, longer than glume, ovate, obtusely trigonous, ca. 4 mm, leathery, glabrous, several veined, base cuneate, apex abruptly contracted into a slightly broad and short beak, orifice 2-toothed, teeth rather long and divergent. Nutlets rather loosely enveloped, broadly obovate or obovate, trigonous, 1.5-2 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex mucronate; style base not thickened, slightly recurved; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.
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