Rhizome probably shortly creeping. Stems triquetrous, sparsely scabrid just below the inflorescence, otherwise smooth, 25-50 cm by 0.5-1 mm, surrounded below the leaves by the fibrous remains of old leaf-sheaths. Leaves basal and one half-way up the stem, exceeding the stem, long-attenuate, rigid, with revolute margins, scabrid in the upper part, grey-green with a metallic hue, 3-7 mm wide; cauline leaf long-sheathing. Inflorescence spiciform (or almost so when its lowest node bears 2 spikelets), 2-4 cm long. Lowest bract foliaceous, patent, much overtopping the inflorescence, shortly sheathing, upper one(s) much reduced. Spikelets 2-10, androgynous, subglobose, dense, sessile or on very short included peduncles, 5-8 mm long, the male part about as long as the female, but inconspicuous when the utricles are fully developed. Glumes ovate or ovate-lanceolate, acutish or obtuse, nerved, minutely ciliolate, otherwise glabrous, brownish with whitish hyaline margins, 1.5-2 mm long, the midnerve excurrent in a hispidulous, ¾-1 mm long awn. Utricles much overtopping the glumes, trigonous, rhomboid-lageniform, with prominent angles and somewhat concave faces, subcoriaceous, patulous, strongly many-nerved, straight, glabrous, smooth except for a few setae in the upper part, not stipitate, curved-tapering to the base, rather gradually narrowed into the beak, greenish brown, 4¼-5 by 1½-1¾ mm; beak compressed, bidentate, 1.5-2 mm long, with slightly oblique mouth. Nut trigonous, broadly rhomboid, with thickened angles and concave faces, curved-tapering downwards to a short cylindric stipe and upwards to a stout, cylindric, 0.25-0.75 mm long and 0.5-¾ mm wide neck, truncate at the apex, c. 2.5 by 1.5 mm. Style-base slightly thickened, centred in the hollowed apex of the nut. Stigmas 3.
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