Small annual.. Leaves many in a basal tuft, filiform with a setaceous tip, 1–2 cm. long, not expanded at the base.. Scapes filiform, conspicuously papillose, up to ± 25, 4–10 cm. high, 3-ribbed; sheaths shorter than the leaves, not papillose.. Capitulum depressed-globose with truncate base, 1–2 mm. diameter, the bracts thinly cartilaginous; involucral bracts straw-coloured, noticably paler than the floral bracts, obovate to suborbicular, 0.8–1.0 mm. long, rounded; floral bracts similar to the involucral but flushed grey or blackish, translucent, the upper margin crenulate; receptacle pilose; flowers dimerous, strongly laterally compressed, 0.8–0.9 mm. long, glabrous.. Male flowers: sepals free, narrowly oblong, obtuse, denticulate on the upper margin; petals rudimentary; anthers 4, black.. Female flowers: sepals strongly keeled, almost square in profile, overlapping and covering the petals and ovary, truncate, narrowly winged on the keel, a hyaline patch on the centre body, upper sepal-margin and wing-margin irregularly denticulate; petals unequal, narrowly oblanceolate, eglandular, the tips denticulate, sometimes emarginate, occasionally with one or two small marginal hairs.. Mature seeds not seen.
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