Annuals. Rhizomes absent. Culms densely tufted, 3-25 cm tall, slender, flatly 3-angled, smooth, with few leaves at base. Leaves shorter than culm; leaf blade filiform, 0.5-1 mm wide, flat, both surfaces sparsely pubescent, margin slightly involute; sheath brown, short, white pilose. Involucral bracts 3-5, filiform, shorter to longer than inflorescence, sparsely hairy. Inflorescence a compound anthela, lax; rays 3-7, to 3 cm, slender. Spikelets solitary, ovoid, oblong-ovoid, or narrowly ovoid, 2.5-6 × 1-1.5 mm, many flowered. Glumes spirally imbricate, reddish brown, ovate to oblong, ca. 1 mm, membranous, 3-veined forming an abaxial green keel, apex mucronate. Stamen 1; anther narrowly ovoid. Style long and compressed, basally inflated, apically ciliate; stigmas 2, short. Nutlet yellow, subsessile, obovoid, ca. 0.6 mm, biconvex, almost smooth or sometimes with very indistinct hexagonal reticulation. Fl. May-Aug.
In open damp places, in swamps, and especially as a weed in wet rice-fields, at elevations up to 1,800 metres.
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