Rhizome long creeping, stout. Culms 10-20 cm tall, trigonous, scabrous, clothed with pale brown bladeless sheaths at base. Leaves subequaling or shorter than culm, blades linear, 3-5 mm wide, flat, rarely plicate, margins scabrous, apex acuminate. Involucral bracts glumelike. Spicate inflorescence cylindric, 3-4.5 cm; spikes 6-20, androgynous, ovate or oblong-ovate, 5-7 × 3-5 mm. Female glumes pale ferruginous, broadly ovate or suborbicular, 2-2.2 × 1.5-1.8 mm, membranous, 1-veined, margins white hyaline, apex obtuse. Utricles pale ferruginous-yellow, longer than glume, ovate-lanceolate, plano-convex, 3-3.5 mm, many veined abaxially, 2-4-veined adaxially, base subrounded, shortly stipitate, margins narrowly serrulate winged, apex gradually attenuate into a long beak, beak ferruginous, deeply cleft to middle abaxially, membranous, 2-toothed at orifice. Nutlets rather loosely enveloped, elliptic, plano-convex, ca. 1.5 mm, base substipitate, apex subrounded; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.