Rhizome short. Culms tufted, 20-60 cm tall, acutely trigonous, slightly stiff, smooth, slightly scabrous, clothed at base with brown sheaths disintegrating into fibers. Leaves longer than culm, blades linear, 3-4 mm wide, flat, leathery, margins scabrous. Lower involucral bracts leaflike, longer than inflorescence, rarely shorter, upper ones setaceous, sheathless. Spikes 4-6, approximate, disposed in fastigiate inflorescence; terminal spike male or gynaecandrous, linear-cylindric, 40-55 × 2-4 mm, densely many flowered, with peduncle or sessile; lateral spikes female (occasionally some of these becoming androgynous and bearing several male flowers apically), cylindric, 35-70 × 3-4 mm, densely many flowered, lowest with peduncle 1-1.5 cm, others gradually becoming subsessile to sessile. Female glumes castaneous, lanceolate, margins narrowly white hyaline, yellow-green 3-veined costa excurrent into a mucro, apex acuminate. Utricles brown to olivaceous, slightly shorter than glume, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, plano-convex, 2.5-4 mm, lustrous, densely minutely papillose, nerveless except for 2 marginal costas, apex abruptly contracted into a long beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlets tightly enveloped, broadly obovoid, ca. 1.5 mm; stigmas 2, 0.5-2 × as long as utricle. Fl. and fr. (May-)Jun.
Home