Rhizome shortly creeping, woody, covered with the fibrous remains of old scales. Stems tufted, triquetrous, smooth, surrounded below the leaves by a few bladeless, brown sheaths or their fibrous remains, 50-70 cm by 174-2 mm. Leaves basal, sometimes 1-2 higher on the stem, much exceeding the stems, rigid, flat, long-attenuate, scabrid on the margins in the upper part, 7-16 mm wide; cauline leaves long-sheathing. Inflorescence a slender, compound panicle, continuous above, interrupted below, 15-35 cm long; secondary panicles 4-6, single at the nodes, erect, spiciform or the middle ones again branched, oblong, dense, 2-6 by 1-2 cm; lower peduncles more or less exserted from the sheaths, smooth, or scabrid above; rachis hispidulous especially above. Lower bracts foliaceous, overtopping the inflorescence, long-sheathing, upper much reduced. Spikelets numerous, androgynous, ovoid, oblong, or subglobose, 5-10 mm long, the female part rather longer than the male part. Glumes ovate-lanceolate, acutish or obtuse, membranous, nerved, shortly setulose above or glabrescent, sparsely ciliolate, greenish white or light brown with whitish hyaline margins, 2 mm long, the midnerve excurrent in a smooth or hispidulous, 0.5 mm long awnlet. Utricles much overtopping the glumes, trigonous, ellipsoid-rhomboid, with prominent angles and flattish faces, membranous, suberect, many-nerved, straight, whitish setulose (except at the base), scarcely stipitate, rather abruptly beaked, finally dark brown, 3.5-4.5 by 1.5-2 mm; beak oblong-conical, bidenticulate, with slightly oblique mouth, 1 mm long. Nut triquetrous, ellipsoid-rhomboid, sessile, narrowly discoid-annulate at the apex, ferrugineous to blackish, 2.25-2.5 by 1.5-1¾ mm. Style-base pyramidally thickened, persistent on the nut. Stigmas 3.
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