Perennial (always?), forming dense tufts, glabrous (except for the ligule), glaucescent. Stems erect or curved, setaceous, sulcate, smooth, incrassate at the base, 5-30 cm by up to 1 mm. Leaves half as long to as long as the stems, setaceous, wiry, obtusish, complicate-canaliculate, smooth, with obliquely truncate, ferrugineous sheaths, ½-1 mm wide; ligule a row of short hairs. Inflorescence often consisting of a single, terminal or pseudo-lateral spikelet, more rarely 1 or 2 lateral spikelets added. Spikelets erect, solitary, ovoid-ellipsoid or oblong, terete, acute, denselymany-flowered,palebrown,5-15 by 2-3 mm, the subtending bract sometimes glume-like, but often with an erect blade as long as or slightly overtopping the inflorescence; rachilla narrowly winged. Glumes spiral, densely imbricate, thinly membranous, oblong-ovate or oblong, more than twice as long as broad, obtuse, scarcely keeled, muticous or apiculate with green midnerve, otherwise nerveless, 2½-3 by 1-1⅓ mm; lowest 2 sterile glumes acute, often mucro-nate. Stamens 1-2; anthers linear, 4/5-1 mm. Style slender, flat, not hyaline-margined, slightly dilated at the base, sparsely ciliate at the top, ½-1 mm; stigmas 2, about as long as or longer than the style. Nut biconvex, with acute angles, cuneate-obovate or oblong-obovate, shortly stipitate, rounded at the apex (not umbonulate), smooth or verruculose, delicately reticulate by the minute, transversely elliptic or oblong, not impressed epidermal cells in c. 30 vertical rows on either face, greyish or blackish brown, 4/5-1.1 by ½-3/5(-¾) mm.
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Annuals or short-lived perennials. Rhizomes very short or absent, with many remnant fibers from old leaves. Culms densely tufted, 5-25 cm tall, slender, cylindric, smooth, striate, with fewer leaves at base. Leaves shorter than culm; sheath yellowish brown, short, glabrous; leaf blade nearly Juncus-like, ca. 1 mm in diam., smooth. Involucral bract (0 or)1, 5-12 mm, needlelike, basally broadened, margin membranous. Inflorescences with a single terminal spikelet, ellipsoid to oblong, 5-8 × 3-3.5 mm, 10-to many flowered, apex obtuse to rounded. Glumes densely spirally imbricate, pale white and translucent with short brown lines at middle, sometimes apically slightly yellowish brown laterally, oblong, ca. 3 mm, membranous, 1-veined, not keeled, apex rounded and without or with only a very short hard mucro. Stamens 3; anthers linear, short. Style long, slightly compressed, basally inflated, apical half ciliate; stigmas 2. Nutlet grayish black, obovoid, ca. 1 mm, biconvex, sparsely verruculose and with transversely oblong reticulation. Fl. and fr. Mar-Sep. 2n = 10.
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