Herb, monoecious, perennial, caespitose, forming large dense tussocks of crowded culms to 30 cm or more at the base, sometimes dying at the centre and forming rings1–1.5 m across. Rhizomes 2.5–5 mm diam., covered by glossy glabrous overlapping tan-brown scales. Cataphylls oblong, broadest above the middle, tapering to a rounded apex, with a narrow thin-textured apical margin; glossy, scarious, pale tan-brown; lower cataphylls appressed, upper ones erect or recurved. Culms unbranched, of a single internode, slender and flexible when fresh, crowded on short rhizomes, glabrous, striate, pruinose toward the base; with a persistent scarious sheath to 4 cm long at the base of the peduncle which is continuous with the culm but more slender; culms (including peduncles) 0.5–1 m high, 1–1.5 (–1.8) mm diam. near the base. Spike solitary, terminal, cylindrical to ovoid, compact, with 20–45 glumes and flowers, spikes to 4.5 cm long, 4.5–6 mm diam., with zones of female and male flowers alternating once or twice along the spike axis, the basal zone mostly female; flowers spirally arranged in 5 ranks, on very short pedicels. Glumes ovate to ovate-cuneate, 3–5 mm long, 3–4 mm wide, rigid, dark brown, towards the apex densely ciliate with pale hairs. Tepals 6, the 2 outer tepals keeled. Male flowers with 4 stamens. Female flowers with a 2-locular ovary and 2 styles but only 1 carpel developing. Fruit a small nut (structurally an achene), shed with attached short stout stipe. Seeds with an irregular pattern of longitudinal lines of convex cells. Culm striate with narrow grooves extending to the base of the chlorenchyma; stomates on sides or near base of grooves; ridges without a central sclerenchyma rib.
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