Herb, dioecious, caespitose, perennial, forming small, many-culmed plants. Cataphylls glossy, tan-brown, appressed, 0.4–2.0 cm long, with a pale mucro to 2 mm long. Culms erect, 8–27 cm long, c. 0.5 mm diam., yellow-green. Sheaths: a single hyaline to scarious sheath present on most culms, at or usually above the culm midpoint, occasionally also another sheath c. 1 cm above the cataphylls; appressed or slightly lax, 5–12 mm long, mucro c. 3 mm long. Spikelets terminal on culms, subtending bract 2–5 mm long with a mucro 0.8–1.8 mm long; glumes green or pale brown. Male spikelets narrow-ovoid, becoming loose and spreading, 7–12 mm long, 4–6 mm wide; glumes c. 40, all fertile, scarious to hyaline, ovate, 3.0–4.0 mm long, glabrous, truncate or auriculate, mucro 1–1.5 mm long. Female spikelets narrow-ellipsoid, 7–9 mm long, c. 4 mm wide; glumes c. 12, several lower ones sterile, obovate, c. 4 mm long; apex auriculate, shortly pilose with white hairs, mucro c. 1.5 mm long. Male flowers: tepals 4 or 5, glabrous, hyaline, narrow-spathulate, 3–4 mm long; 2 outer tepals keeled, inner tepals flat; anthers exserted, c. 1 mm long, exserted. Female flowers: tepals 0–3, similar to males, c. 2.5 mm long; ovary unilocular, style 1, mostly stigmatic. Nut ovoid, c. 1.5 mm long with a short conical stylar beak; pericarp glossy, pale, soft and hyaline, transparent revealing the brown seed; seed brown, glossy. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma continuous.
Home