Glabrous perennial with very short rhizome. Stems slender, densely tufted, obtusely 3-4-angled, sulcate, smooth, 15-40(-70) cm by ⅓-1 mm. Leaves reduced to tubular, bladeless or short-bladed, stramineous or ferrugineous sheaths. Inflorescence consisting of a single terminal spikelet. Spikelet more or less nodding, ebracteate, ovoid or broadly ovoid, terete, obtuse or acutish, densely many-flowered, stramineous and castaneous variegated, 5-15 by 3-5 mm; rachilla narrowly winged. Glumes spiral, chartaceous, broadly ovate, very obtuse, apiculate, scarcely keeled, 3-5(-9)-nerved in the centre, with shining brown, nerveless sides, 3½-4½ by 3-3½ mm. Stamens 3; anthers linear, 1½-2 mm. Style flat, relatively broad, liguliform, not or scarcely dilated at the base, ciliate in the upper half, 2½-3½ by ½-7/10 mm; stigmas 2, much shorter than the style. Nut biconvex or almost flat on the inner side, with obtuse edges, obovate, shortly and broadly stipitate, not or scarcely umbonulate, tuberculate towards the margins or throughout, with 3-5(-6) transverse wavy ridges, obscurely reticulate by the minute, hexagonal epidermal cells, whitish, 1¼-1½ by 1-1¼ mm.
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Annuals or short-lived perennials. Rhizomes extremely short or absent. Culms densely tufted, 15-85 cm tall, subcylindric, stiff, striate, smooth, glabrous, with leaf sheaths at base. Leaves bladeless; leaf sheath brown, basal ones glumelike and apical ones cylindric, margins membranous, apex obliquely truncate. Involucral bract 1, glumelike, ovate, 2-4.5 mm, apex mucronate. Inflorescences reduced to a single terminal spikelet, ovoid, ellipsoid, or oblong-ovoid, 5-15 × 2-5 mm, slightly nodding, 10-to many flowered. Glumes rather densely spirally imbricate, brown with short rust-colored lines, broadly ovate to subelliptic, 3-5 mm, papery, veins many but abaxially faint, apex rounded and mucronate. Stamens 3; anthers linear. Style long and compressed, basally slightly inflated, apically sparsely ciliate; stigmas 2, short. Nutlet white with a very short brown stipe, obovoid, 1.2-1.5 mm, flatly biconvex to sometimes nearly flat-convex, with transverse wavy reticulation and verruculose margins. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.
Damp sandy spots, moist places in forests, wet grass-plains, savannahs, wet rice-fields, swamps, also on brackish soil, at low altitudes (0-70 m).
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