Perennial with thick, woody, horizontally long-creeping or ascending, sinuous, often branched rhizome densely clothed with the remains of old leaf-sheaths. Stems solitary, rigid, obtusely trigonous or subterete, striate, pubescent to at length glabrous, the lower 5-15 cm surrounded by 2-3 tubular sheaths with short erect blades, 10-30(-60) cm by 1-2½ mm. Basal leaves much shorter than the stems, rigid, often falcate or circinnate, flat with revolute margins, abruptly acuminate, silky strigose-pubescent beneath, 2-4 mm wide; ligule absent. Inflorescence simple or compound, loose, 5-10 cm long. Involucral bracts 2-3, much shorter than the inflorescence, lanceolate, acuminate, silky pubescent, rarely up to 2½ cm long. Primary rays 3-6, obliquely patent, smooth, usually 3-8 cm long, sometimes very short. Spikelets in clusters of 3-6, oblong-ovoid, angular, acute, densely several-flowered, silvery grey to brownish, 6-10 by 2½-3 mm; rachilla broadly winged. Glumes spiral, membranous, broadly ovate, mucronulate, distinctly keeled, many-nerved over the whole breadth, pubescent, with broad scarious margins, 2½-4 by 2-3 mm. Stamens (2-)3; anthers linear, c. 1½ mm long, with distinctly produced connective bristly at the top. Style flat, broad, slightly dilated at the base, with more or less papillose-ciliolate margins, 1½-1¾ mm long; stigmas 2, or in a few flowers 3 (see Notes), shorter than to as long as the style. Nut biconvex, obovate, subsessile, indis-tinctly umbonulate, smooth, fuscous, 1-1⅓ by 4/5-1 mm; epidermal cells minute, hexagonal.
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Perennials. Rhizomes obliquely to horizontally elongated, branched, covered with often blackish brown fibers from old leaf sheaths. Culms widely spaced, 15-30 cm tall, obtusely 3-angled, with white silky hairs, bearing leaves at base. Leaf sheath adaxially membranous and rust-colored, mouth obliquely split; ligule absent; leaf blade 1.5-3.2 mm wide, curved, flat, both surfaces with dense white silky hairs, apex acute. Involucral bracts 2 or 3, leaflike, shorter than inflorescence, both surfaces with white silky hairs. Inflorescence a simple anthela; rays 2-4, 0.7-2.5 mm, sometimes extremely short, compressed, with white silky hairs. Spikelets 3-15 in capitate heads, oblong-ovoid to oblong, 6-10 × 2-3.5 mm, apex acute. Glumes ovate, ca. 3 mm, both surfaces with reddish purplish lines, midvein white pilose, margin broad and white, apex obtuse with a hard mucro. Stamens 3; anthers narrowly oblong, ca. 3 mm. Ovary oblong, biconvex; style slightly compressed, basally slightly inflated and hairy, apically slightly pubescent; stigmas 2, slightly shorter than style. Nutlet yellowish white to brown when young but blackish purple when mature, ellipsoid-obovoid to obovoid, ca. 1.5 mm, biconvex. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct.
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