Rhizome shortly creeping, woody. Stems loosely tufted, triquetrous, smooth, (15-)60-100 cm by 1-3 mm, surrounded below the leaves by bladeless, brownish to blackish sheaths and their fibrous remains. Leaves subcoriaceous, mostly basal but some higher on the stem, as long as or longer than the stems, linear, long-attenuate, flat or with slightly revolute margins, scabrid on the margins and the nerves above, 5-15 mm wide; sheaths blackish-nerved. Inflorescence a decompound, erect, interrupted panicle occupying the upper half of the stem; secondary panicles 3-8, single at the nodes, erect, oblong-pyramidal, rather loose to dense, the upper approximate, the lower distant on long-exserted peduncles, up to 10 cm long; rachis sparsely hispidulous on the angles. Lower bracts foliaceous, exceeding the inflorescence, long-sheathing, their sheaths glabrous, or hispidulous at the mouth; upper bracts much reduced; bracteoles with a filiform, usually long and recurved awn. Spikelets divaricate, androgynous, rather dense, (5-)10-20 mm long, the male part as long as to (usually) much longer than the female part. Glumes thinly membranous, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acute or obtuse, sometimes slightly emarginate, nerved, glabrous, stramineous to brownish, 2-3.5 mm long, the midnerve excurrent into an antrorsely scabrid, recurved, up to 3.5 mm long awn. Utricles inflated, obsoletely trigonous, broadly ellipsoid to subglobose, patent, straight or almost so, subcoriaceous, strongly many-nerved (nerves c. 10 on each face), glabrous, scarcely stipitate, abruptly beaked, olive-brown, 3.5-5 by 1⅔-2 1/3 mm; beak straight or slightly bent, 1.5-2 mm long; mouth oblique, not bidentate. Nut triquetrous, with very prominent angles and concave faces, broadly ellipsoid-obovoid to subglobose, pyriform, or rhomboid, scarcely stipitate, sometimes slightly discoid-annulate at the apex, often with a curved or straight, dark brown to blackish rostrum, 2-3 by 1.5-2 mm. Style-base pyramidally thickened, subpersistent on the nut. Stigmas 3.
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