Annuals. Culms 10-40 cm, slightly erect or sprawling, 3-angled, glabrous. Veins of leaf blades and bracts purple, fine. Leaf sheath with narrow wings but apically broader; ligule absent; leaf blade linear, 1-4 cm × 1.5-3 mm, apex acute to acuminate. Involucral bracts and bractlets leaflike or glumelike; leaflike bracts green, 3-10 mm, papery. Inflorescence a capitate cyme, 1 or 2 at each node. Male spikelets with 3 glumes and 1 or 2 flowers; glumes scarious. Female spikelets oblong to ovoid, with 2 opposite glumes and 1 flower; glumes greenish yellow, suboblong, ca. 1.8 mm, membranous, prominently several veined, 3-lobed, middle lobe larger, longer, and apically mucronate. Male flowers: anthers 1 or 2. Female flowers: stigmas 3, pubescent. Disk adnate to base of nutlet, obscurely 3-sided. Nutlet included in 2 glumes, globose, 0.8-1 mm in diam., with 3 longitudinal ribs and rectangular reticulation, apex hispid. Fl. and fr. Sep-Oct.
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