Perennial with woody, shortly creeping-ascending rhizome covered with ovate, striate, fuscous sheaths. Stems solitary or somewhat tufted, obtusely trigonous, slightly compressed, glabrous or pilose, smooth, leafy at the base, 20-30 cm by ⅓-¾ mm. Leaves much shorter than the stems, erect or slightly curved, flat or with inrolled margins, long-acuminate, with bristle-like, readily caducous tip, more or less hispid especially beneath, or glabrescent, ⅓-1 mm wide; ligule absent; outer sheaths coriaceous, shining fuscous or purplish, glabrous or pilose. Inflorescence simple or subcompound, obtriangular, rather dense, with (1-)5-15 spikelets, up to 4 cm long. Involucral bracts 3-4, erect, dilated at the base, hispid at least at the base, the lowest up to 2½ cm. Rays up to 4, obliquely patent, compressed, glabrous and smooth, 1-2. cm. Spikelets solitary or partly 2-3 together, oblong-ovate, strongly compressed, acute, 6-9-flowered, fuscous, 5-8 by 2-2½ mm; rachilla broadly winged. Glumes distichous, chartaceous, obliquely erect, triangular-ovate, acuminate, apiculate, sharply keeled, 1-nerved, scabrid with short white hairs but finally glabrescent, whitish hyaline-margined, dull fuscous, 3-4 by 2-3 mm. Stamens 3; anthers linear, 1½-2 mm. Style triquetrous, slightly incrassate at the base, glabrous, 2-3 mm; stigmas 3, about ½ as long as the style. Nut obtusely trigonous, obovoid, shortly stipitate, minutely umbonulate, sparsely verruculose, whitish or stramineous, 1-1.1 by ¾-4/5 mm; epidermal cells minute, isodiametric.
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