Rhizome elongate, stoloniferous. Culms tufted, 30-60 cm tall, acutely trigonous, scabrous, clothed at base with reddish brown, lustrous, bladeless sheaths disintegrating into reticulate fibers. Leaves equaling culm, blades gray-green below, linear, 3-5 mm wide, flat, rigid, margins revolute. Lowest involucral bract leaflike, equaling or sometimes longer than inflorescence, upper ones setaceous, sheathless. Spikes 4 or 5; terminal spike male, linear, 30-80 × ca. 2.5 mm, with short peduncle; lateral spikes usually female, rarely with several male flowers at apex, linear-cylindric, 30-80 × ca. 3 mm, densely many flowered, upper spikes approximate, with short peduncles, lower ones slightly distant, with scabrous, slender, erect peduncles. Female glumes pale, ovate-lanceolate, 2-2.5 mm, 1-3-veined costa forming a slightly scabrous mucro at apex. Utricles light green, often purple-brown, longer than glume, ovate or elliptic, biconvex, 2.5-3 mm, membranous, minutely papillose, nerveless except for 2 marginal costas, base truncate, shortly stipitate, apex contracted into a slightly scabrous columnar short beak, orifice pale, emarginate. Nutlets tightly enveloped, narrowly obovoid, 1.5-2 mm; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. Jul.
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