Herbs, dioecious, rhizomatous perennial, forming diffuse patches to 1.6 m across. Rhizome horizontal, to c. 15 cm long or more, 1–3 mm diam.; scales appressed, scarious, pale- to red-brown, partly covering a pale woolly pubescence. Cataphylls pale, appressed, crowded. Culms not dimorphic, spaced to 1.5 cm apart, erect, straight, + terete, unbranched or rarely branched, c. 35–50 cm long, 0.7–1.2 mm diam., smooth to striate, glabrous; internodes several, 4–10 cm long, lowest internode partly pubescent. Sheaths lax and reflexed, oblong to narrow obcuneate, 1.0–1.7 cm long, scarious, striate, brown, apex mucronate to truncate, margin densely pilose; lamina 0.6–1.5 mm long. Inflorescence of 2–6 spikelets crowded and sessile or nearly so at the uppermost 1–2 nodes. Male spikelets narrow-ovoid, 7–10 mm long, 2–3 mm wide. Female spikelets narrow-ovoid, 6–8.5 mm long, 2.0–2.5 mm wide. Male glumes: lower 2–5 sterile, c. 20 upper glumes fertile, broad-oblong, red-brown, glossy, acute-mucronate, 4.6–5.5 mm long; apical margin densely pilose; mucro 0.5–1.0 mm long, tip expanded, hairy. Female glumes: lower1 or 2 sterile, upper c. 6 fertile, similar to males but shorter, 3.5–5.0 mm long. Male flowers: tepals 5, narrow-lanceolate, glossy-hyaline, acute; outer tepals keeled, pubescent along keel, 3.8–6.0 mm long; inner tepals flat, glabrous, 3.8–5.2 mm long; stamens 3; filaments 4–6 mm long; anthers 2.0–2.4 mm long. Female flowers: tepals similar to males; only one carpel developing; style single, unbranched, wholly stigmatic, persistent, arising on one side of the ovary. Capsule c. 2 mm long, smooth, glaucous, dark brown. Seed ellipsoid, c. 1.5 mm long, dark brown with a thin white surface layer, colliculate with lines of convex cells and a network of narrow ridges. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma interrupted by pillar cells opposite vascular bundles.
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