Rhizome shortly creeping, woody, covered with the fibrous, fuscous remains of old scales. Stems slender, triquetrous, narrowly winged just below the inflorescence, smooth below, antrorsely scabrous-setulose above, 10-50 cm by 1 mm (up to 2 mm in the winged part), the base clothed with the fibrous remains of old leaf-sheaths. Leaves basal and 1-2 cauline, shorter than to much exceeding the stems, rigid to rather weak, flat, with revolute margins when dry, long-attenuate, scabrid in the upper part, light green, 3-10 mm wide; cauline leaves long-sheathing; ligule short, triangular. Inflorescence spiciform, consisting of (1-)3(-4) dense, sessile, ovoid or subglobose spikelets 0-5 cm distant, and 6-10(-12) mm long and wide. Lower 1-2 bracts foliaceous, usually much exceeding the inflorescence, not sheathing, amplexicaul by ciliolate auricles, upper much reduced. Spikelets androgynous, the male part about as long as the female, but inconspicuous when the utricles are fully developed. Glumes oblong-ovate to ovate, membranous, nerved, densely setulose, white, or brownish with white margins, 2½-4½ mm long; midnerve excurrent in a scabrid, 0.5-1 mm long awn. Utricles trigonous, ovoid or rhomboid-ovoid, membranous, patent, slenderly nerved, rather abruptly narrowed into the beak, densely hispidulous in the upper ⅔, whitish or brownish, 4-6 by 1.8-2 1/3 mm; beak conic-cylindric, bidentate, with slightly oblique mouth, 1-2.5 mm long. Nut triquetrous, ellipsoid, rhomboid, or slightly obovoid, scarcely stipitate, cinereous, dark brown on the angles, 2.5-3 by 1¾-2 mm. Style-base pyramidally thickened, persistent on the nut. Stigmas 3.
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Rhizome oblique. Culms tufted, 18-40 × ca. 0.1 cm, slender, trigonous, scabrid at upper part. Leaves longer or shorter than culms, flat, 4-8 mm wide, margins and veins scabrid; persistent sheaths brown, fibriform. Involucral bracts leafy, without sheaths, lowest one longer than inflorescence, others very short, setaceous. Panicle spicate, 1-4-branched; inflorescence branches subsessile, fewer spiked, sometimes with sterile spike at lower part. Spikes bisexual, androgynous, dense, ovate-globose, 5-8 × 4-7 mm, subsessile; male part of spike not prominent, usually not exserted from female part, 3-5-flowered; female part densely fewer flowered; male glumes yellowish white, lanceolate, 4.5-5 mm, membranous, upper part hairy, with 1 midrib, apex acuminate; female glumes yellowish white, lanceolate, 3-3.5 mm, densely hairy, with 1 midrib and several fine veins, apex acuminate, with short awns. Utricles yellowish white, slightly inflated, trigonous, 4.5-5 mm, membranous, densely hairy, with 2 lateral keels and several fine veins, subsessile, margins very narrowly winged, apex contracted into long beak, orifice minutely 2-toothed. Nutlets pale yellow at maturity, ovate, trigonous, ca. 3 mm; style base thickened and pyriform; stigmas 3.
In grassy fields on heavy calcareous marl, in muddy places in teak-forests, at low altitude (up to 200 m), obviously bound to a distinct seasonal climate and its range apparently coinciding with that of teak. See Nelmes 1951, l.c.
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