Herbs, monoecious, perennial, rhizomatous. Rhizomes villous, largely covered by almost glabrous scales. Cataphylls scarious. Culms terete, striate, Sheaths: basal sheaths persistent, striate, lamina reduced; lower culm sheaths caducous, the nodes swollen and prominent. Inflorescence of two or few spikelets. Spikelet: axis zigzag, with long pale branched hairs; glumes all subtending flowers, female flowers at the spikelet base, flower sex alternating once or twice towards the apex depending on spikelet size. Flowers: male and female flowers similar; tepals 6, outer tepals keeled, the adaxial outer tepal and inner tepals ± flat. Male flowers: stamens 6, free; anthers 2-locular, 4-sporangiate, versatile, latrorse, dehiscing by two longitudinal slits; pistillode present. Female flowers: staminodes minute; ovary 3-locular; styles 3, free, stout, wholly stigmatic, densely covered adaxially with long stigmatic branches. Fruit a loculicidal capsule. Seeds patterned with convex, strongly lobed cells. Culm anatomy: with grooves extending to the base of the chlorenchyma, overarched by enlarged epidermal cells; stomates and accompanying sclereids at base of the groove; ridges with a central sclerenchyma rib.
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