Annual with fibrous roots. Stems very slender, densely tufted, setaceous, angular, smooth, 3-20 cm by ⅓-½ mm. Leaves shorter than the stems, filiform, flat or canaliculate, acute, densely soft-hairy also on the stramineous or ferrugineous sheaths, ⅓-½ mm wide; ligule absent. Inflorescence compound, more rarely subsimple, loose, with many spikelets, 1-7 cm long. Involucral bracts up to 6, similar to the leaves, the lower 1-2 somewhat shorter than the inflorescence to slightly overtopping it. Primary rays filiform, obliquely patent, glabrous and smooth (see var. trichopoda!), up to 5 cm. Spikelets solitary, ovoid or oblong-lanceolate, angular, acute, densely many-flowered, greenish brown, 3-7 by 1-1½ mm; rachilla narrowly winged. Glumes spiral, thinly membranous, subpatulous at the top, ovate, obtusish, mucronulate, with sharp, green, obscurely 3-nerved keel, prominent midnerve, and pubescent or glabrescent nerveless sides, ferrugineous, darker lineolate, 1¼-1½ by ¾-1 mm. Stamen 1; anther oblong, ⅓-½ mm. Style flat, not hyaline-margined, dilated at the base, sparsely ciliate at the top, glabrous or with a few short cilia at the base, ½-¾ mm; stigmas 2, shorter than the style. Nut biconvex, with acute edges, elliptic or obovate, shortly stipitate, umbonulate, obscurely reticulate by the hexagonal, not impressed epidermal cells, smooth, shining stramineous, ½-⅔ by 2/5-½ mm.
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