Glabrous perennial with horizontal, shortly creeping, up to 4 cm long, woody rhizome clothed with ovate, striate, fuscous sheaths. Stems approximate, uniseriate on the rhizome, very slender, obtusely trigonous, striate-sulcate, smooth, 50-65 cm by 1 mm. Leaves few (c. 2) to the stem, somewhat shorter than the stems, rigid, erect, filiform, with inrolled margins, acute, smooth, or scabrid at the very top, ½-¾ mm wide; ligule short, membranous. Inflorescence consisting of a single terminal spikelet. Spikelet erect, ellipsoid or oblong-ellipsoid, terete, acute, many-flowered, ferrugineous, 15-35 by 4-5 mm; rachilla narrowly winged. Glumes spiral, chartaceous, appressed, ovate, obtuse, muticous or inconspicuously apiculate, scarcely keeled, with strong midnerve and about 10 less prominent nerves on either side, hyaline-margined in the upper part, 6-7 by 4½-5 mm. Stamens 3; anthers linear, 2½-3 mm. Style flat, slightly dilated at the base, fimbriate-ciliate in the upper half, 3½-4 by ⅓, mm; stigmas 2, shorter than the style. Ovary in the upper half with thinly membranous, transversely striate wings. Nut biconvex, obovate, conspicuously stipitate (gynophore ½-¾ mm), emarginate at the top by the 3/5-4/5 mm broad style-scar, whitish, c. 2 by 1.2-1⅓ mm; epidermal cells minute, isodiametric; wings of the ovary indurate in the mature nuts and only discernible by their transverse striation different from the reticulation of the nut proper.
Home