Rhizome shortly creeping, covered with 2-ranked, ovate-lanceolate, pale sheaths. Stems approximate, slender, rigid, finely striate, terete, or with a longi-tudinal furrow, smooth, pungent, 25-60(-100) cm by 1-2 mm, the base tightly clothed with some purplish bladeless sheaths. Leaves 1-2 to the stem, basal, similar to the stems, terete, smooth, pungent, 1-2 mm thick. Panicle erect, oblong, narrow, loose to rather dense, 5-10(-25)cm long. Bracts spathe-like, brown, the lowest with very short blade, the upper ones gradually smaller. Branches usually in twos or threes, erect, with few spikelets, the lower ones more or less distant. Spikelets shortly peduncled, 1-flowered, 5-7 mm long. Glumes 3(-4), rigid, lanceolate, long-acuminate, with glabrous margins, at first erect, spreading in fruit, ferrugineous to fuscous, up to 6 mm long, lower 2 empty. Bristles absent. Stamens 3, c. 3 mm long, with distinct, c. ½ mm. long appendage of the connective (fixing mechanism, see p. 706). Nut ellipsoid, trigonous with 3 indistinct ribs, smooth, shining, shortly and broadly stipitate, finally brown to blackish, 2½-3½ mm long; persistent style-base conical, glabrous, black.
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