Annual, with fibrous roots. Stems solitary or tufted, slender, trigonous, striate, smooth, leafy at the base. Leaves shorter to longer than the stems, very narrow, 1-2 mm wide. Inflorescence a single semiglobose to globose dense head 1-1% cm across. Bracts 3-7, unequal, patent to reflexed, sheathless, not keeled, densely ciliate at the dilated base, the lowest up to 10 cm. Spikelets numerous, linearlanceolate, acuminate, 2-flowered, 5-7 mm long; lower flower ♀, perfecting a nut, upper one ♂. Glumes 6, distichous, acute, keeled, fulvous-ferrugineous. Bristles in the lower flower 6, antrorsely scabrous, at least 3 of them much exceeding the style-base (5%-7 mm long), 1-3 much shorter, the shortest as long as or shorter than the nut, in the upper flower absent. Stamens 2; anthers attenuate and destitute of pollen at the base, ¾ mm (young). Style very long, shortly bilobed or entire. Style-base strongly com-pressed, ovate, acute, scabrous, stramineous, 2/5-½ as long as the nut and % as wide as its apex, constricted at the base, not decurrent on the shoulders of the nut. Nut obovate, strongly dorsiventrally compressed, slightly biconvex, not grooved, bordered by a nerve-like margin, hispidulous at the top, shining brown, minutely puncticulate, 1½-1¾ by 0.8-0.9 mm; epidermal cells isodiametric.
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