Rhizome short or stoloniferous. Culms tufted, 15-50 cm tall, slender, compressed trigonous, smooth or slightly scabrid. Basal sheaths pale yellow-brown to rusty brown. Leaves shorter or longer than culm, blades 2-3(-4) mm wide, flat, margins scabrid. Involucral bracts sheathed, sheath 5-18 mm, lower ones leafy, upper ones bristlelike, shorter than or equaling inflorescence. Spikes 2-4, spaced; terminal spike male, narrowly cylindric, 15-20 mm; lateral spikes female, sometimes with male flowers at apex, oblong-cylindric or narrowly cylindric, 10-30 × 2-3 mm, loosely flowered, peduncles enclosed in involucral bract sheath or slightly exserted. Female glumes pale or pale brown, obovate, green costa 1-3-veined, excurrent into a mucro, apex truncate. Utricles pale yellow-green, longer than or nearly equaling glume, ovate-elliptic, obtusely trigonous, ca. 3 mm, densely puberulent, slightly many veined, base attenuate into a short stipe, apex attenuate into a conic beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlet gray-black at maturity, tightly enveloped, ovate, trigonous, ca. 1.5 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex discoid-annulate; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.
Home