Perennial herb. Culms erect, terete, smooth or faintly scaberulous, without nodes, light yellow-green, 25–60 cm high, 0.7–1.5 mm diam. Leaf-sheaths pink-brown turning grey-brown with age, not shiny, breaking up with age to form a network of fibres round the base of the culms; ligule a narrow, chartaceous red-brown band (occasionally to 5 mm long in younger leaves), occasionally with a narrow membranous border; leaf-blades reduced, to 2 cm long. Inflorescence globose to hemispherical, 7–10 mm diam. Involucral bracts: 2 longer than the inflorescence, with 1 erect and the other at c. 90° to the culm, both 2–5.5 cm long, subequal with narrow membranous margin to bases. Spikelets 8–10 mm long; glumes 6 or 7, with a straight to recurved awn. Anthers 2.0–3.0 mm long with an appendage 1.2–1.8 rom long. Nutlet 3.0–4.0 mm long, 1.5–1.8 mm diam., whitish, ovate; gynophore yellowish, with a small, erect or spreading disc.
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