Slender tufted annual.. Leaves narrowly linear, up to 3 cm. long and 1 mm. wide, 3-nerved, fenestrate, tapering to a filiform tip, soon dying back.. Scapes 4–6, stiffly erect, 6–9 cm. high, 0.5 mm. diameter, 4-ribbed; sheaths loose, ± equalling the leaves, obliquely slit, the limb hyaline, entire, acute.. Capitula subglobose, slightly longer than wide, 2.5–3 mm. diameter, grey with the darker flowers visible between the bracts; involucral bracts broadly obovate, subequalling the capitulum width, concave, the tip rounded, cuneate below, up to 1.3 mm. long and wide, straw-coloured; floral bracts obovate, lightly concave, tip rounded, cuneate below, ± 1.3×0.8 mm., glabrous, straw-coloured above; receptacle columnar, shortly pilose, the hairs 0.3 mm. long, flowers trimerous, ± 1 mm. long, pedicellate.. Male flowers: sepals connate into a hyaline spathe; petals included, tiny; anthers black.. Female flowers obtriangular: sepals two, deeply concave, the keel gibbous with a broad, pale wing surrounding a thinner blackish central patch, ± 1.1×0.8 mm., the third sepal vestigial, a tiny tooth; petals unequal, glabrous and eglandular, the tips blackish, lateral petals oblanceolate-oblong, ± 0.8 mm., the third oblanceolate, ± 1.2 mm.. Seeds ellipsoid, 0.4 mm. long, with conspicuous transverse rows of white hair-like projections.
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