Pycreus polystachyos P.Beauv.

Annuals or short-lived perennials. Roots fibrous. Rhizomes short. Culms densely tufted, 8-60 cm tall, compressed 3-angled, stiff, smooth. Leaves shorter than culm; sheath brown at basal part, long; leaf blade 2-4 mm wide, flat, sometimes folded, slightly rigid. Involucral bracts 4-6, leaflike, longer than inflorescence. Inflorescence a simple or almost capitate anthela; rays 5-8, mostly to 3.5 cm but sometimes short, each with many spikelets. Spikelets linear to linear-oblong, (0.5-)0.7-1.8 cm × 1.5-2 mm, congested into a globose spike, 6-30-flowered or more; rachilla flexuose, narrowly winged. Glumes on both surfaces straw-colored, reddish brown, dark grayish brown, or blackish dark grayish brown, densely imbricate, ovate-oblong, ca. 2 mm, membranous, 3-veined, keel abaxially green, apex sometimes mucronate. Stamens (1 or)2; anthers linear; connective prominent beyond anthers. Style long; stigmas 2, slender. Nutlet suboblong to ovoid-oblong, ca. 1/2 as long as subtending glume, biconvex, puncticulate, apex mucronate. Fl. and fr. May-Oct.