Very slender annual with fibrous roots, glabrous except for the glumes, pale green. Stems very densely tufted, setaceous, sharply 4-ribbed, smooth, 10-20 cm by ¼-⅓ mm, the base clothed with 1-2 tubular short-bladed sheaths. Basal leaves much shorter than the stems, rather rigid, falcate, rather abruptly acuminate, ½-1 mm wide; ligule absent. Inflorescence simple or subcompound, loose, with 3-9 spikelets, up to 4 cm long. Involucral bracts 3-4, erect with more or less excurved tip, setaceous, dilated at the base, the lowest ½-1 cm. Rays 2-5, filiform, obliquely patent, often upcurved, com-pressed, smooth, 1-2½ cm. Spikelets solitary, lanceolate to almost linear, strongly compressed, acute, densely many-flowered, 3-7 (ultimately up to 12) by 1¼ mm; rachilla winged. Glumes exactly distichous, membranous, obliquely erect, ovate, acute, muticous or minutely apiculate, 1-nerved, sharply keeled, with straight keel, densely pubescent, ferrugineous, paler towards the margins, 1½-1¾ by 1-1.2 mm. Stamens 2; anthers oblong-linear, c. ½ mm. Style slender, triquetrous, pyramidally thickened at the base, glabrous, 1 mm; stigmas 3, much shorter than the style. Nut very obtusely trigonous, oblong-obovoid to ellipsoid, shortly stipitate, minutely umbonulate, not verruculose, finely longitudinally striate and transversely lineolate by the transversely linear epidermal cells in 3-4 vertical rows on each face, at first whitish, finally yellowish brown; c. ⅔ by ⅓ mm.
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