Herb, up to 25 cm, (sub)glabrous. Stem simple or branched, 1.5-2 mm wide. Leaves 2-4 mm long, slightly thickened at base, minutely sparsely papillose. Spike 0.5-6 cm by 4.5-5.5 mm, very dense, rounded at apex. Bracts elliptic to obovate, 1.5-2 by 0.8-1.2 mm, not thickened at base, at apex acutish and finely mucronate, imbricately covering the flower buds, patent with slightly upturned apex, persistent till or after the fruits have fallen, at last re-flexed; bracteoles absent. Flowers c. 2.5 mm long. Sepals connate ± halfway, unequal, slightly cucul-late, c. 1.5 mm long. Anthers 3 or 5, rarely 4, sessile. Disk rather distinct, enclosing the lower and lateral side of the ovary and adnate to it, expanding gradually in fruit and then visible as a rim near the base of it. Ovary broadly elliptic; style shorter than the ovary, subcylindrical, c. 0.1 mm long, unequally 2-lobed, the larger upper lobe stigmatic, the lower one tooth-like and hollow at apex; gynoecium somewhat shorter than the androecium. Fruit broadly elliptic, c. 1 by 1 mm, at base tightly enclosed by the disk, the whole enclosed by the somewhat shorter sepals.
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