Herb, evergreen, dioecious, perennial. Rhizomes short, horizontal or ascending, with crowded culms, covered by dark brown ± glossy scales. Culms erect and straight or sinuous, smooth or minutely rugose, 30–100 cm tall, 0.8–1.4 mm diam.; with 4–6 internodes, each 5–11 cm long. Cataphylls 5–20 mm long, with a mucro or awn 1–5 mm long, glabrous or sparsely ciliate with hairs c. 1 mm long, mostly closely enwrapping culms. Sheaths 6–18 mm long, green or red-brown, tapering sharply to the apex; glabrous or sparsely ciliate at apex with hairs 0.5–2 mm long, lax toward apex, with a curved black awn 2–10 mm long. Inflorescences with 1–11 spathes in male inflorescences, 1–5 in females, each subtending only a single flower, or with several closely spaced spathes but only the uppermost subtending a flower; lateral branches of male inflorescences not extending beyond the spathe. Spathes acute, rigid, 3–9 mm long, glabrous or sparsely ciliate, with a rigid curved awn about as long as the spathe. Male flowers: tepals 6, hyaline, oblong or narrow lanceolate, glabrous or sparsely ciliate at apex, acuminate or acute or blunt, 5–7 mm long; filament column 7–8 mm long; anthers 2.5–3.5 mm long. Female flowers: pedicel c. 1.5 mm long; tepals 6, rigid, 3.5–5 mm long, glabrous or sparsely ciliate toward apex; outer tepals ovate, with a slender black awn 2.5–7 mm long; inner tepals deltoid, acute or acuminate; style 8–10 mm long. Capsule depressed globular, 4–5 mm long, 5.5–7 mm diam. Seeds c. 2 mm diam., encircled in the median vertical plane by a narrow hyaline flange; the outer layer white, smooth, readily detached; the surface with fine short spines arising from the corners of minute concavities.
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