Rhizome short, stoloniferous. Culms tufted, 30-60 cm tall, acutely trigonous, smooth or scabrous, clothed at base with yellow-brown, lustrous, bladeless sheaths slightly disintegrating into fibers. Leaves ± equaling or slightly shorter than culm, blades gray-green, linear, 2-4 mm wide, flat, slightly soft, densely minutely papillose, margins involute. Involucral bracts leaflike, equaling inflorescence, sheathless. Spikes 4 or 5; terminal spike male, linear-cylindric, 20-40 × 3-4 mm, with peduncle; lateral spikes female, cylindric, 20-70 × 3-5 mm, densely many flowered, with short peduncles or sessile. Female glumes red-brown, narrowly ovate-lanceolate, ca. 3 mm, lustrous, green 3-veined costa excurrent into a mucro at truncate or emarginate apex. Utricles light green or stramineous, usually with minute flecks, shorter but broader than glume, oblong-ovate or obovate, biconvex, ca. 3 mm, membranous, nerveless except for 2 marginal costas, base contracted into a short stipe, apex abruptly contracted into an often scabrous-margined beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlets tightly enveloped, oblong-ovate or obovate, biconvex, 1.5-1.8 mm; style very short, ca. 0.2 mm, base not thickened; stigmas 2, long and slender, persistent.
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