Annual with fibrous, yellowish roots, in favourable circumstances perennial with short rhizome; stolons wanting. Stems rigid, very slender, tufted, trigonous, smooth, 5-60 cm by 1-1½ rnm. Leaves rigid, narrow, canaliculate, often almost setaceous, very gradually acuminate, smooth or slightly scabrid at the top, 1-2(-3) mm wide; lower sheaths ferrugineous to dark reddish brown. Inflorescence simple or subcompound, rather open to contracted into a single cluster. Involucral bracts 2-4, obliquely erect to patent, the lower 1-2 much overtopping the inflorescence, often seemingly continuing the stem, up to 25 cm. Primary rays 3-6, erect or obliquely erect, very slender, smooth, up to 5 cm, secondary ones when present 1-3 mm. Spikes ovoid to broadly ovoid, with 5-20 spikelets; rhachis short, 3-10 mm. Spikelets spreading, the lower ones often somewhat reflexed, linear, exactly parallel-sided, strongly com-pressed, 20-40(-60)-flowered, 1-2(-3) cm by 2-2½(-3)mm; rachilla straight, wingless, persistent; internodes 2/5-½ mm. Glumes chartaceous, obliquely erect, sharply keeled, oblong-ovate, obtuse, muticous ⅔ imbricate, 1½-2½ by 1-1½ mm; keel green, 3-nerved; sides shining, stramineous, brown, or blackish, nerveless; margins whitish hyaline especially towards the top. Stamens 2; anthers oblong, c. ½ mm. Style rather short; stigmas 2, longer than the style. Nut biconvex, laterally compressed, oblong-obovate to oblong-elliptic, distinctly apiculate, fuscous to dark castaneous, 4/5-1.2 by 2/5-⅔ mm; epidermal cells isodiametric.
In open, wet places: swamps, grassy fields, watersides, rice-fields, etc., from the lowland (here apparently rare) up to 2100 m, in New Guinea up to 2800 m.
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