Perennial, with woody, creeping rhizome 2-3 mm thick. Stems erect, in tufts, slender, subterete, longitudinally ribbed, smooth, pale green, (30-)60-90 cm by 1-2 mm. Sheaths herbaceous, shining, dark purplish at the base, the uppermost scarious at the very oblique, not mucronate mouth. Spikelet erect, cylindric, obtuse, densely many-flowered, pale to dark brown, 12-18 by c. 3 mm. Glumes thinly membranous, appressed, concave (not keeled), oblong-ovate, acutish, 1-nerved, with narrow, green, median streak, otherwise brown, purplish zonate within the broad, whitish, scarious margins, c. 4½ mm long, the lowest firmer, obtuse, embracing the spikelet, sterile. Bristles (3-)4, firm, retrorsely scab-rous, reaching as high as the style-base or slightly overtopping it, pale. Stamens (2-)3; anthers linear, c. 2 mm long, with ovate appendage of the connective. Style 2-fid, occasionally 3-fid. Nut biconvex, turgid, elliptic, constricted at the top into a short, but distinct neck, not costate on the angles, shining, yellow or pale brown, 1½-1⅔ by 1⅓ mm, obsoletely reticulate by the subisodiametric epidermal cells. Style-base triangular, flattened, cellular-spongious, c. 3/5 as wide as the nut.
Home