Eleocharis variegata C.Presl

A stoloniferous perennial with culms crowded in small tussocks, but in older plants sometimes with a thick erect rhizome. Stolons to about 30 cm long and 1.5-2.5 mm thick, soft and pale straw-coloured (but sometimes with a reddish tinge), with 5-15 mm long greyish-black scales at the internodes; roots frequently produced at the base of the scales. Culms very variable in shape and form, 25-90 cm long and 1-5 mm thick, rounded, quadrangular, bluntly or more distinctly triangular but not winged, with distinct or obscure longitudinal ridges. Sheaths about 3 above the prophyll, grey, purple or greenish, ending in triangular, greyish lobes. Inflorescence a cylindric spike, 10-55 mm long and 2.5-5.0 mm thick. Inflorescence-bracts green below and greyish above, much shorter than the glumes. Glumes 3-5 mm long, purplish with an often broad greenish central area and a transparent margin in the upper part (the margin often with minute dark dots) or more rarely most of the glume greenish or straw-coloured with purple lines or dots only; midrib not very distinct, 1-nerved or with numerous minute ridges only; apex obtuse but often much frayed. Perianth segments of usually 7-8 reddish bristles (much longer than the nutlet), densely set with recurved spine-like teeth or with bristles depauperate or absent. Stamens 3. Style-branches 2-3, varying in number even on the same plant. Nutlet 1.5-1.9 mm long (excluding the appendage) and 1.3-1.5 mm wide, biconvex and almost urn-shaped (but sometimes with a somewhat narrower top than shown in the figure), when young whitish to straw-coloured, when mature brownish, surface finely ribbed and reticulate between the ribs (but more clearly so in the unripe nutlet); appendage darker, conical.

In similar habitats (to the abovementioned species).