Perennial with very short rhizome; stolons wanting; roots thick, funiliform. Stems solitary or sub cespitose, stout, rigid, triquetrous, smooth, or scabrous on the angles above, up to 80(-110) cm by (3-)5-8 mm. Leaves basal, channelled or flat, as long as or longer than the stems, gradually acuminate, septate, nodulose, coriaceous, very scabrous (cutting) on margins and midrib, glaucous or greyish green, 8-12(-20) mm wide, lower sheaths bladeless, strongly keeled, cinnamomeous to purplish. Inflorescence compound or decompound, often with very numerous spikelets, depressed-corymbose or semiglobose, very dense to rather loose, up to 30 cm across. Involucral bracts 5-8, slightly distant, patent to reflexed, the larger ones much overtopping the inflorescence, up to 80 cm. Primary rays up to 12, rigid, smooth, widely spreading, often slightly upcurved, up to 10 cm; secondary rays divaricate, up to 4 cm, tertiary ones when present very short. Spikelets often very numerous, digitately arranged, in clusters of 3-8, widely spreading, ovate to linear-lanceolate, acute, compressed but somewhat turgid, c. 5-20 by 2½-3 mm, up to 60-flowered; rachilla straight, wingless, persistent; internodes ¼-⅓ mm. Glumes firmly membranous, appressed, ovate to broadly ovate, obtusish, mucronulate, with rounded, strongly 3-nerved, green back, nerveless, cellular-reticulate, yellowish or brownish sides and narrow, whitish hyaline margins, very densely (¾-4/5) imbricate, 2-2½ by 1½-2 mm. Stamens 3; anthers linear, c. 1 mm, the connective produced into a bristly appendage. Style flattened, ciliate; stigmas 3, short. Nut unequally trigonous, dorsally compressed, with corky, much thickened angles, ellipsoid, apiculate, shining greyish brown to blackish with strawcoloured or yellow angles, 1¾-2 by 1 mm; ventral side somewhat concave, dorsal side with a raised angle.
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Perennials. Roots ± thick. Rhizomes very short. Culms 1(-3 and tufted), 30-90 cm tall, stout, triquetrous, scabrid on apical angles, leaved at basal part. Leaves equaling culm; sheath brownish, basal ones bladeless; leaf blade 5-12 mm wide, ± stiff, ± flat plicate, margin scabrous. Involucral bracts 5-12, longer than inflorescence, basal few to 60 cm, spreading to deflexed after anthesis. Inflorescence a compound or decompound anthela; rays many (to 17), 2-8 cm, ± slender, each with 4-16 raylets; raylets 1-4 cm, each with 3-7 spikelets. Spikelets digitately arranged at apex of raylets, narrowly oblong-ovoid, 5-8 × ca. 2.5 mm, oblique or spreading, densely 15-35-flowered; rachilla straight, wingless. Glumes broadly ovate, 2-2.5 mm, thickly membranous, inconspicuously 3-veined, keel abaxially greenish, apex acute to obtuse and mucronate. Stamens 3, short. Style long, flattened, margin pilose; stigmas 3, short. Nutlet brownish glaucous, ellipsoid to ovoid-ellipsoid, compressed 3-sided, with concave sides, shiny, angles pale brown and markedly spongy-thickened.
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