Plants perennial, cespitose, 80–150 cm; rhizomes absent. Culms erect with arching tops, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender. Leaves overtopped by inflorescence; blades linear, proximally flat, 3–5 mm wide, apex trigonous, subulate, tapering. Inflorescences: spikelet clusters mostly 4–6, various in shape and crowding, narrowly to broadly turbinate; peduncles erect, branches slender, ascending; leafy bracts exceeding all but most distal clusters. Spikelets red brown, broadly ellipsoid, (1.5–)2–3(–3.5) mm, apex acute; fertile scales broadly ovate, 2–3 mm, midrib excurrent as apiculus or awn. Flowers: perianth bristles 6, mostly spreading, usually exceeding tubercle, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits 2–3(–4) per spikelet, 1.5(–1.7) mm; body pale brown to brown, strongly flattened, obovoid orbicular, 1–1.2 × 0.8–1.1; surfaces transversely wavy rugose, intervals vertically striate with very narrowly rectangular alveolae; tubercle flat, triangular or concavely triangular, 0.3–0.5(–0.7) mm.
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