Plants tufted, 0.3-0.6 m tall, without spreading rhizomes or stolons. Fertile culms branching, round, smooth to roughly warty, green or olivaceous, slender, 0.2-0.5 mm diam. at apex; sheaths loosely convoluted or flat and standing free from culm, 8-20 mm long, golden brown to yellow, acuminate, apical margins narrowly membranous, hyaline shoulders absent: mucro absent or awl-or needle-shaped, straight and erect, 0.5-3.0 mm long. Male inflorescence with 6-20 spikelets, racemose or paniculate, 20-55 x 6-12 mm; spathes persistent, at most as tall as spikelets, cartilaginous, acuminate; spikelets pendulous on flexible pedicels, linear or ovate, acute, 6-12 x 2-3 mm, 4-15-flowered; bracts equalling flowers, 3.5-5.0 mm long, ovate, acuminate, cartilaginous, awn minute or at least less than half as long as bract body, acuminate recurved apices give spikelet a bristly appearance. Male flowers 2.5-3.0 mm long; tepals all equally long, linear to oblong; outer tepals cartilaginous, laterals conduplicate and sparsely villous on keels; inner tepals chartaceous; anthers 1.5-2.0 mm long, exserted from flowers; pistillode absent. Female inflorescence with up to 5 spikelets, sparsely paniculate, 5-35 x 4-8 mm; spathes up to as long as spikelets, persistent, cartilaginous; spikelets sessile, elliptical or obovate, rounded, obtuse or acute, 5-11 mm long, 3-8-flowered; bracts 4.5-6.0 mm long, ovate, apiculate, bony or coriaceous, awn less than half as long as bract body. Female flower 3.0-4.5 mm long; tepals all equally long, 2.5-4.5 mm long, ovate, acute, bony or coriaceous, outer lateral tepals conduplicate with densely villous keels; staminodes absent. Gynoecium: styles 2, feathery, bases fused to form a pillar; ovary dehiscent, bilocular. Seed 1.7-2 x 1.1-1.3 mm, side view oblong (but distinctly bulged at one end), cross section triangular (with corners very rounded), grey (often with brown mottling), smooth.
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