Rhizome short. Stems tufted, stout, ancipitous, smooth, up to 1 m by 3-6 mm, several-leaved at the base and usually with 1 cauline leaf halfway up. Leaves coriaceous, equitant, ensiform, gradually narrowed upwards and shortly acuminate, smooth, (7-)10-20 mm wide. Panicle erect, ovate to oblong, usually dense or very dense, consisting of c. 3 approximate fascicles of branches, 8-12(-25)cm long. Bracts erect, shortly laminate, brown, with ancipitous sheaths. Branches erect, rigid, usually not or hardly exserted from the sheath, unequal, often hispidulous on the angles. Spikelets in numerous clusters, ovate, often falcate, 2-4(-6?)-flowered, dark purple, 6-7 by 2½-3 mm. Glumes 5-7, ovatelanceolate, obtusish, sometimes minutely mucronulate, with more or less scaberulous keel and ciliolate or glabrous margins, 5-6 mm long. Bristles usually absent (very rarely a single vestigial bristle present; see note). Stamens 3 (or in some flowers 2); filaments somewhat elongated after anthesis, up to c. 1 cm long, not comose; anthers 2-3 mm long, connective with distinct, c. ⅓ mm long appendage. Nut ovoid, triquetrous with convex sides and winged angles, ferrugineous, 3-4 by c. 1 mm (stipe and beak included); stipe obpyramidal, 3-winged, ½-1 mm long; persistent style-base narrowly pyramidal, glabrous, 1-1½ mm long.
In open swampy localities, along margins of lakes, in forest-borders, and on ridges in the mossy forest, 1900-3300 m.
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