Culms to 125 cm. Leaves: sheaths glaucous, fronts indistinctly veined, veins not persisting, apex thin, truncate or irregularly convex; blades 120 cm × 7–10 mm, glabrous. Inflorescences with 5–7 spikes, 30 cm; peduncle of lateral spikes to 6 cm; proximal bracts equaling inflorescences, 3–6 mm wide; lateral spikes divergent, 3–6 cm × 6–8 mm. Pistillate scales shorter and narrower than perigynia, apex acute, awn to 3 mm. Perigynia strongly divergent, red-brown, angles veined, faces prominently 6–8-veined, sessile, widely elliptic or somewhat obovate, 3.5–4.5 × 2.8–3.2 mm, base rounded, apex ± truncate proximal to beak, densely papillose with low, oblong or, rarely, minute, rounded papillae, not markedly glaucous; beak 0.3–0.5 mm, entire or minutely bidentate, teeth to 0.1 mm. Achenes rhomboid, 2.5–3 × 2.5–3 mm, base conspicuously broadened.