Perennial, with short rhizome and long-creeping stolons ending (always?) in tubers. Stems erect, tufted, rather robust, terete, smooth (rugulose when dry), not transversely septate, 65-85 cm by 3-6 mm. Sheaths loose, membranous, pale green to stramin-eous, often darker at the base, obliquely truncate, muticous. Spikelet cylindrical, terete, subacute, very densely many-flowered, 1½-2 cm by 4-6 mm. Glumes rather firm, very closely packed (the exposed portion broader than long), broadly ovate or sub-orbicular, rounded at the apex, not keeled, faintly many-nerved, stramineous, brown-zonate within the broad scarious margin, c. 4 by (3-)4 mm, the lowermost empty, embracing the stem. Bristles 5-6, firm, retrorsely scabrous, 2-3 reaching the top of the persistent style-base, other ones slightly shorter to slightly longer than the nut. Stamens 3. Style 2-fid (always?). Nut biconvex, broadly elliptic or broadly obovate, subtruncate, with slightly ribbed angles, slightly reticulate, shining, castaneous when ripe, c. 2 by 1⅔-1¾ mm; epidermal cells transversely oblong, in c. 30 vertical series on either face. Style-base triangular, flattened, spongy, ¾ as long and almost as wide as the nut.
Home