Rhizome short, woody. Culms 40-50 cm tall, smooth, clothed at base with yellow-brown sheaths. Leaves shorter than culm, blades gray-green, linear, 1-2 mm wide, flat, slightly soft, apex acuminate. Involucral bracts leaflike, shorter than inflorescence, sheathing. Spikes 4-7; upper 2 or 3 spikes male, 10-12 mm; remaining spikes female, sometimes few spikes with male flowers at apex, cylindric, 1-2 cm, many flowered, with peduncles 5-20 mm. Female glumes yellow-brown, ovate, 3-3.2 mm, hispid, 1-veined, margins broadly white hyaline, apex acute. Utricles stramineous-green, longer than glume, ovate, trigonous, 3.5-4.4 mm, membranous, hispid, faintly veined, base shortly stipitate, apex gradually attenuate into a beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlets yellow-brown, oblong, ca. 2.5 mm, base with a stipe ca. 0.5 mm; style ca. 1.5 mm, pubescent, base not thickened; stigmas 2.
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