Rhizome short-creeping, horizontal; 2-3 mm thick stolons covered with distichous, lanceolate, acute, greyish-stramineous scales often present. Stems approximate, slender, rigid, compressed-biconvex, acutely 2-angled, smooth, transversely septate (but septa not visible from the outside!), (60 cm-)l-2 m by 2-3 mm (according to a field-note up to 3½ m tall among bushes). Leaves as a rule much reduced, the basal ones bladeless, the 2-3 cauline leaves distant, conduplicate at the base, xiphoid in the upper part; sheaths brownish; blades 1-2(-5)cm by 2-3 mm, very rarely up to 25 cm long. Panicle erect, oblong, narrow, loose, consisting of 3-5 distant fascicles of branches, (5-)10-20 cm long. Lower bracts similar to the leaves, 10-15 mm long, the upper ones reduced to the sheaths. Branches usually in twos, erect, unequal, strongly flexuous, scaberulous. Spikelets in ovoid clusters of 2-4, or a few solitary, ovate-lanceolate, 1-flowered, ferrugineous to brown, 2-3 mm long. Glumes 3-4, ovatelanceolate, acuminate, scaberulous in the upper part, c. 2 mm long. Bristles absent. Stamens 3; anthers c. 1 mm long, with distinct c. ⅓ mm long appendage of the connective. Nut ovoid-ellipsoid, obtusely trigonous, sessile, wrinkled when dry, shining light-brown, 1½-1¾ by c. 1 mm (beak included); persistent style-base small, depressed, semiglobose, gradually passing into the nut, blackish, white-pubescent.
Open hill-sides, also on ultrabasic soil, on ledges and boulders in stream-beds, margins of lakes, in periodically flooded riverine forests, from low altitude up to 1500 m.
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