Stems slender but rigid, often curved, 5-25 cm, obtusangular, sulcate-striate, smooth, 5-30 cm by c. 1 mm, leafy towards the base. Basal leaves rigid, often recurved, flat or slightly canaliculate, obtuse, with slightly scaberulous margins, 1-3 mm wide; sheaths shining brown; cauline leaves with tubular sheaths. Panicle contracted, 1½-5 cm long; branches short, solitary or 2 together, smooth. Bracts 2-3, leaf-like, overtopping the inflorescence; inner ones scale-like. Spikelets few, 2-3 together, unequally peduncled, oblong-lanceolate, finally turbinate, ob-tuse, 1-flowered, 8-12 by 2-2½ mm. Glumes 4-5, distichous, chartaceous, narrowly lanceolate, stramineous, glabrous, almost obtuse, the lower 2-3 empty; above the flower often a narrow empty glume. Hypogynous bristles 6, exceeding the nut, 8-9 mm long, rigid, ferrugineous, plumose almost the whole length, antrorsely scabrous at the top. Stamens 3. Style-base long, incrassate at the base, glabrous, persistent. Nut oblong, 3-4 by ¾-1 mm (beak excluded), trigonous, shortly stipitate (stipe c. ½ mm), brown, finely puncticulate, beaked by the persistent style-base, surrounded by the persistent, finally spreading bristles.
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Tufted. Culms (3)–6–30–(75) cm. × 0.5–1.5 mm., grooved, flaccid or rather rigid, occ. curved. Lvs , (5)–10–20–(30) cm. × 0.5–1.5–(2) mm., us. culms, rigid, lamina narrow-linear, flat or concavo-convex, tip obtuse; sheath broad, brown, shining; lower portion of lamina and mouth of sheath minutely serrulate. Infl. a terminal corymb, occ. condensed and almost forming a head, or spikelets in 4–6 loose stalked clusters; bracts subtending infl. 1–2, lf-like; bracts subtending spikelets more glume-like. Spikelets 8–12 mm. long, pale and shining, 1-fld. Glumes us. 5, lanceolate, ± obtuse, stiffly membr., keeled, the 2 lower shorter, the next larger pair subtending the fl., the fifth glume setaceous. Hypog. bristles 6, plumose with silky hairs almost to the tip, then scabrid, > glumes when mature. Nut 2.5–3 mm. long, slightly < 1mm. wide, trigonous, minutely punctulate, shortly stipitate, pale to dark brown, surmounted by the dried and rigid, long, narrow, smooth or minutely hairy style-base.
Microtherm; on alpine grasslands, sandy banks of streams, in marshy hollows, and on alpine seepage slopes, often a pioneer in shallow tarns, 3000-4200 m.
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