Perennial with very short rhizome. Stems tufted, slender, triquetrous, smooth, 10-35 cm by 2(-2½) mm. Leaves few, linear, long-attenuate, flat, much longer than the stems, with 3 more prominent nerves, scabrid on margins and nerves in the upper part, 5-8 mm wide; lower sheaths purplish. Inflorescence subcompound or compound, rather loose or contracted, up to 5 cm across. Involucral bracts very unequal, 3 or 4 much overtopping the inflorescence, the lowest up to 30 cm. Primary rays 4-5, rigid, smooth, up to 5 cm, secondary ones very short. Spikelets subdigitately arranged, stellately spreading, 3-8 together, linear, acute, compressed, 8-16-flowered, (5-)7-8(-12) by 1½ mm; rachilla straight, hardly winged, persistent; internodes ½-⅔ mm. Glumes subcoriaceous, oblong-ovate, somewhat in-curved, ½ imbricate, rounded at the top, muticous, 13-15-nerved, minutely setulose at apex, brownish red with scarcely hyaline margins, 2-2½ mm long. Stamens 3; anthers linear, c. ¾ mm, with short, smooth appendage of the connective. Style hardly any (rarely up to ⅓ mm); stigmas 3, pilose, rarely glabrous, c. ½ mm. Nut trigonous, with rounded angles and concave sides, ellipsoid, acute, about ⅔ as long as the glume, brown, 1.6-1.8 by 2/5 mm.
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