Perennial herbs with short, woody, obliquely erect rhizome covered with the fibrous remains of decayed leaf-sheaths. Leaves 3-ranked, equitant, conduplicate at the base, subcoriaceous, either linear, gradually narrowed into a tail-like, aculeate-scabrous acumen, or, more rarely, narrowly oblong, petiolate, abruptly acuminate and caudate; midnerve prominent on the under side; ligule absent. Flowering scapes slender, usually much shorter than the leaves, arising laterally, either from the axils of the lower leaves, or below the leaves, with some basal bladeless sheaths, not rarely also with 1-3 bladeless sheaths higher up. Inflorescence terminal, corymbose, capituliform, or consisting of a single spikelet; bracts very short. Spikelets small, (narrowly) ellipsoid, ovoid, or obovoid, terete, many-flowered, usually brown. Glumes spirally imbricate, subcoriaceous, brown, with paler midnerve, nerveless sides, and hyaline margins, some lower ones empty. Flowers compressed, bisexual; hypogynous scales (squamellae) usually 5, the lowest 2 transversal, opposite, free, boat-shaped, coarsely brown-spinulose on the acute keel, the 3rd (anticous) scale as a rule absent, the upper 3 concave, empty; rarely scales 6, the anticous one present, but smaller than the upper 3. Stamens 2, very rarely 3, in the axils of the lower scales; anthers oblong-linear, scarcely appendaged. Style continuous with the ovary; stigmas 3, rarely 4. Nut subterete or angular, turgid in the middle, narrowed towards the base, the apex with a cupuliform, conical-pyramidal, or elongated beak often confluent with the nut proper; exocarp hard, thin.
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