Small, delicate grey-green or blue-green, rarely reddish perennial tufts, 5-40 cm, with densely packed wiry, short and curved, or longer and erect leaves usually « culms; branching intravaginal, with a few extravaginal shoots at plant base; leaf-blades persistent. Leaf-sheath very pale brown, often purplish, membranous, distinctly ribbed, minutely scabrid abaxially, occasionally smooth. Ligule 0.2-0.7 mm, truncate, erose, glabrous throughout. Leaf-blade 0.5-1.5-(5) cm × 1-1.5-(3) mm, usually fine and folded, adaxially with minute scattered prickle-teeth, abaxially smooth, but midrib scabrid near naviculate tip; margins inrolled, sparingly scabrid. Culm (1.5)-5-15-(40) cm, very slender, purplish, usually bearing 2 small cauline leaves, internodes glabrous. Panicle 1.5-6.5-(8) cm, open; rachis glabrous, branches capillary, sometimes flexuous, very minutely scabrid with prickle-teeth scarcely visible except at high magnification, with rather few spikelets, clustered 2-3 at branch tips. Spikelets 1.5-4.5 mm, (1)-3-5-(6)-flowered, silvery purple-green. Glumes subequal, 1-2 mm, with wide hyaline margins, midnerve slightly scabrid in upper ½ or near tip; lower narrower, ovate-lanceolate, acute, 1-(3)-nerved, upper ovate, obtuse, 3-nerved, sometimes with a few prickle-teeth on margins and on lateral nerves above. Lemma 1-2 mm, 5-nerved, ovate, obtuse, covered almost throughout or for c. ⅔ length with long, appressed, silky hairs, c. 0.2 mm, midnerve scabrid and internerves glabrous near membranous tip. Palea 1-2 mm, keels long-ciliate, interkeel with appressed hairs, flanks with some hairs. Callus glabrous. Rachilla to 0.5 mm, with scattered long hairs or almost glabrous. Lodicules 0.2-0.4 mm. Anthers 0.2-0.5 mm. Gynoecium: ovary 0.3-0.5 mm; stigma-styles 0.7-1 mm. Caryopsis c. 1 × 0.5 mm. 2n= 28. Plate 7F.
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