Probably annual; glabrous. Stems tufted, obtusely compressed-trigonous, striate, smooth, 20-40 cm by ½-1 mm. Leaves much shorter than the stems, flat, obtuse, smooth except for the margins scabrid in the upper part, glaucescent, 1-1¼ mm wide; sheaths pale green to cinnamomeous, hardly keeled, ligule a dense fringe of short hairs. Inflorescence simple, with 1-3 spikelets, the lateral spikelet(s) shortly peduncled (peduncles up to 1 cm). Involucral bracts glume-like when the inflorescence consists of a single spikelet, always short, 3-10(-40) mm. Spikelets solitary, oblong-ovoid, terete, very acute, densely many-flowered, often contorted, pale stramineous, brownish variegated, 10-20 by 3-4 mm; rachilla narrowly winged. Glumes spiral, subtristichous, chartaceous, broadly ovate-deltoid, obtuse, mucro-nulate, hardly keeled, many-nerved, with broad hyaline margins, glabrous, 4½-5 by 4 mm. Stamens 3; anthers linear, 1 mm. Style flat, slightly dilated at the base, ciliate in the upper half, c. 2 by ¼ mm; stigmas 2, much shorter than the style. Nut biconvex, obovate-elliptic, smooth, long-stipitate (gynophore ¾ mm), stramineous, 1½-2 by 1.1-1⅓ mm, the apex emarginate by the c. ½ mm wide style-scar; epidermal cells minute, isodiametric.
In grassy fields, margins of rice-fields,; among grasses on dry road-sides, in brushwood, also on heavy brackish moist clay, at low altitudes, up to 600 m.
Home