Bright green, soft, turfy perennial patches, from long, bare prostrate culms, distally becoming erect, leafy and much-branched; branching intravaginal; leaf-blades persistent. Leaf-sheath greenish brown to purplish, glabrous, hyaline, ribs prominent. Ligule (1.5)-2.5-4 mm, deeply and sharply lacerate, glabrous throughout. Leaf-blade (4)-9-15 cm × 1-2 mm, thin, weak, flat, ribs many, strong, minutely papillose-scabrid, adaxially furrowed, evenly narrowed to very finely obtuse or subobtuse tip; margins glabrous. Culm (1)-10-30-(40) cm, internodes glabrous. Panicle (2)-4-5-(10) cm, ± oblong, contracted, usually overtopped by leaves; rachis glabrous, branches erect, short, scarcely spreading, finely papillose-scabrid, bearing few spikelets. Spikelets 4.5-7.5 mm, 3-5-flowered, greenish brown, very minutely papillose-scabrid. Glumes subequal or the lower obviously shorter, both narrow-lanceolate, acute or acuminate; lower 2.5-4 mm, 1-3-nerved, upper 3-4.5 mm, 3-nerved. Lemma 3.8-5 mm, 5-(7)-nerved, elliptic, drawn out to acute or acuminate tip, mid-and lateral nerves with a few short hairs near base. Palea 2.5-4.5 mm, very narrow, keels with a few short hair-like prickle-teeth. Callus with small tufts of long, twisted hairs below midnerve of lemma and occasionally below lateral nerves. Rachilla 0.5-1 mm, glabrous. Lodicules 0.3-1 mm, occasionally hair-tipped. Gynomonoecious: each spikelet with 1-2 lower flowers ☿, anthers 1.5-2.5 mm, gynoecium c. 1.5 mm; upper flowers ♀ with minute colourless anthers 0.1-0.7 mm, gynoecium c. 1.5 mm. Caryopsis c. 1 × 0.5 mm. 2n= 28.
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