Robust perennial from a stout erect rhizome.. Leaves clustered at the rhizome tip, broadly linear, 6–25(–40) cm. long, 4–14(–18) mm. wide, light green, thick, smooth, the tip broadly rounded.. Scapes 2–5, stout, straight, up to 35(–60) cm. high, 8–10-ribbed; sheaths shorter than the leaves, subinflated at the mouth and split into 2–3 papery lobes.. Capitulum hemispherical, 9–14(–18) mm. wide, greyish white; involucral bracts in 2–3 series slightly narrower than the capitulum width, blackish, firmly scarious, elliptic-oblong, acute, glabrous; floral bracts oblong-cuneate, grey, densely white-pilose upwards; receptacle glabrous; flowers 3–3.5(–4.5) mm. long.. Male flowers: sepals oblong-obovate, connate into a spathe with free tips, lightly keeled, black, white-pilose on the upper back and margins, broadly acute; petals glandular and white-villous above the middle, unequal, the longest 1.5–2.5 mm. long, its tip exserted from the calyx; anthers black.. Female flowers: sepals blackish, subequal, variable, oblong to obovate-oblong, spongy along the midline, white-pilose towards the tips, free or frequently connate at the base, sometimes unequally connate to the middle or above and resembling the male calyx; petals and ovary subsessile; petals white-pilose above the middle, slightly unequal.. Seeds ellipsoid to subrotund, 0.7–1.0 mm. long, brown.. Fig. 2/9.
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