Perennial, often flowering the first year; rhizome short, stolons wanting. Stems firm, rigid, tufted, trigonous below, triquetrous above, smooth, 10-40 cm by 1-2(-4) mm. Leaves flat or slightly canaliculate, rigidulous, gradually acuminate, scaberulous at the top, 2-4(-6) mm wide; lower sheaths stramineous to cinnamomeous. Inflorescence compound or decompound, rather open to very dense, 3-10(-20) cm across. Involucral bracts 3-6, somewhat (1-2 mm) distant, obliquely patent to horizontally spreading, 5-15(-25)cm. Primary rays up to 20, spreading, slender, smooth, 3-5(-12) cm, sometimes very short, secondary ones divergent, ½-1½ cm, tertiary ones up to 1 cm. Spikelets digitately arranged in dense glomerules of 5-20, oblong to linear, acute, strongly compressed, finally perspicacious because of the wide-spreading glumes, 10-30(-50)-flowered, 3-10 by 1-1¼ mm; rachilla wingless, straight, persistent; internodes c. 1/5 mm. Glumes membranous, keeled, ovate, obtuse, minutely mucronulate just below the apex, with arcuate, 3-nerved, green keel, nerveless sides tinged with red or purple, and broad, hvaline margins, c. 1 by ¾ mm,⅔-¾ imbricate but finally wide-spreading and discrete; tip incurved when dry. Stamen 1; anther oblong-linear, with short, smooth appendage of the connective, c. ⅓ mm. Stigmas 3. Nut trigonous, broadly ellipsoid, distinctly broad-stipitate, shortly apiculate, stramineous, c. ½ by ⅓ mm.
Home