Rhizome with slender, ligneous stolons. Culms hardly tufted, 8-35 cm tall, slender, obtusely trigonous, smooth, red-brown and bladeless sheathed at base, rudimentary sheaths usuually disintegrating into reticulate fibers. Leaves longer or shorter than culm, blades 1-3 mm wide, flat, scabrous on margins, sheathed. Involucral bracts leaflike, linear, lower involucral bracts longer than inflorescence, sheathed, uppermost shorter than inflorescence, not sheathed. Spikes 3-6, congregated at top of culm, approximate; male spikes 1-4, inserted at top of culm, cylindric or oblong-lanceolate, 5-25 mm, nearly sessile; remaining spikes bisexual or female, oblong-cylindric, narrowly oblong, or oblong, 0.8-3 cm, slightly laxly many flowered, lower spikes pedunculate, upper spikes sessile or subsessile. Female glumes purple-brown, ovate, ca. 3 mm, membranous, costate, costa yellowish, apex acuminate. Utricles yellowish green, purple-brown flecked, obliquely patent, shorter than glume, obovate, trigonous, 2.5-3 mm, membranous, laxly hispidulous, indistinctly veined, base gradually attenuate into a short stipe, apex attenuate into a short beak, orifice obliquely truncate and emarginate. Nutlets dark brown, tightly enveloped, obovate, trigonous, ca. 1 mm, base very shortly stipitate, apex mucronate; style base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.
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