Glabrous, densely tufted perennial. Stems slender, acutely 5-angled, almost winged, slightly scabrid just below the inflorescence, up to 1 m by c. 2 mm. Leaves of the flowering stems reduced to 1-3 blade-less or almost bladeless, tubular, up to 20 cm long sheaths; those of the sterile shoots much shorter than the stems, erect, rigid, abruptly acuminate, smooth or slightly scabrid on the margins near the apex, 1-2 mm wide; ligule absent. Inflorescence decompound or supradecompound, rather dense, inter-rupted, with numerous spikelets, up to 20 by 10 cm. Involucral bracts 4-6, the lower 1-2 erect, rather rigid, gradually acuminate, with scabrid upper surface and margins, 4-8-cm by 1-1½ mm. Primary rays very unequal, erect, rigid, 4-5-angular, smooth, up to 12 cm. Spikelets solitary, ovoid, angular, acute, few-flowered, 2-3 by 1-1½ mm; rachilla narrowly winged. Glumes spiral, chartaceous, ovate or broadly ovate, acutish, apiculate, obtusely keeled, with dark castaneous keel, yellowish brown sides, and margins hyaline in the upper ⅔, 1¼-1½ by c. 1½ mm. Stamens 1-2; anthers oblong-linear, ⅓-2/5 mm. Style triquetrous, rather gradually thickened towards the base, glabrous, ½-¾ mm; stigmas 3, about as long as the style. Nut trigonous with somewhat convex sides, broadly obovoid, shortly stipitate, scarcely umbonulate, smooth, obscurely reticulate by the roundish or transversely elliptic epidermal cells, stramineous, 3/5-¾ by 3/5 mm.
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