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Annuals. Rhizomes absent. Culms tufted, 6-20 cm tall, 1.5-2 mm wide, 3-angled, striate, glabrous, with 1 or 2 leaves at base. Leaves shorter than culm; sheath membranous, tinged rusty brown on ventral side, mouth obliquely truncate; ligule truncate, ciliate; leaf blade 1-2.5 mm wide, glabrous, gradually narrowed to an acute apex. Involucral bracts subulate, shorter than inflorescence. Inflorescence a simple to decompound anthela, 2-7 cm, lax; rays 3-6, 0.6-4 cm, spreading. Spikelets solitary, narrowly ovoid to oblong-ovoid, 3-6 × 1-1.5 mm, 7-16-flowered. Glumes pale brownish to yellowish, lanceolate-ovate, 2-2.5 mm, margin broadly hyaline, strongly folded by a 3-veined keel with veins projecting into a mucro. Stamen 1. Stigmas 3. Nutlet broadly obovoid, 0.7-1 × ca. 0.5 mm, 3-sided, finely cancellate with transversely oblong epidermal cells, sparsely verruculose; persistent style base conic. Fl. and fr. Sep.
Tufted annual to 2 dm; stems flattened, often harsh-edged; lvs subdistichous, to 4 mm wide; ligule a line of short hairs; longest invol bract suberect, sometimes surpassing the infl; spikelets 3–7 mm, slender, in a dense or open system of often subumbelliform cymes; scales lance-ovate, usually keeled, excurrently mucronate; stamens (1)2; anthers minute; style trifid, much longer than the achene, smooth; achene 1 mm, obovoid-trigonous, smooth to verrucose; 2n=10. Moist or wet, often disturbed sites; pantropical, n. to Me. and Minn
