Herb, dioecious, rhizomatous perennial, forming dense patches to 50 cm across. Rhizomes slender, horizontal, much branched and intertwined, to c. 15 cm long, c. 1–1.5 mm diam., sparsely pubescent; scales small, brown, scarious, appressed. Cataphylls pale brown. Culms dimorphic, slender, numerous, spaced 1.3–8 mm apart, erect, terete, 0.5–0.7 mm diam., glabrous above the lowest internode, striate; fertile culms mostly unbranched below the inflorescence, 5–20 (–40) cm long, nodes (below the inflorescence) 1–3, the lowest internode mostly more slender and often pubescent; sterile culms mostly shorter, repeatedly branched, the branches erect or flexuose, terete to compressed. Sheaths appressed, 4–10 mm long, green to brown, ciliate, smooth or slightly ribbed, acute. Male inflorescence of 1–3 erect or pendulous spikelets, lower spikelets on pedicels to 8 (–15) mm long, upper spikelets sessile or shortly pedicellate. Female inflorescence of 1–2 (–4) erect spikelets at the uppermost node(s). Male spikelets ovoid, 4–15 mm long, 2.5–6.0 mm wide. Female spikelets very narrow-oblong, 8–15 mm long, 1.5–3.0 mm wide, elongating in fruit to 15 (–25) mm long, so that flowers are widely separated. Male glumes 3–15, all fertile, lanceolate, light brown, glabrous or lowest glume apically pubescent, acute, 4.0–4.5 mm long. Female glumes 3–5, similar to males, 4.0–5.5 mm long. Male flowers: tepals 5, lanceolate, acute, membranous, pale, 2.6–3.0 mm long; outer tepals keeled, occasionally pubescent; inner tepals flat, glabrous; stamens 3. Female flowers shortly pedicellate; tepals 5, similar to males; styles 2, free almost to the base, mostly stigmatic. Capsule c. 1–2 mm long. Seed oblong-cylindrical, colliculate with lines of convex cells and a network of narrow ridges between the convex cells. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma interrupted by pillar cells opposite outer vascular bundles.
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