Rhizome indurate. Culms 150-160 cm tall, stout, 3-4 mm thick, acutely trigonous, smooth, slightly scabrous above, clothed at base with dark purple-red bladeless sheaths disintegrating into fibers. Leaves surpassing culm, blades broadly linear, 5-7 mm wide, flat, scabrous adaxially, revolute, stiff. Involucral bracts leaflike, lowest one surpassing inflorescence, sheathless, upper involucral bracts setaceous. Spikes 8 or 9, linear-cylindric, 10-17 cm, lower 1 or 2 spikes branched, with peduncles 1-5 cm. Female glumes dark brown, oblong-lanceolate, 2.5-2.8 × ca. 1 mm, green 3-veined costa excurrent into a scabrous awn. Utricles yellow-brown, sparsely purple-red flecked, slightly longer than glume, ovate, ca. 3 mm, apex abruptly contracted into a beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlets dark brown, slightly loosely enveloped, ovoid to obovoid, plano-convex, 1.8-2 mm; style base not thickened; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. Apr-May.
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