Perennial. Rhizome short, emitting rather slender stolons clothed by ovate striate scales. Stems rather stout, triquetrous, smooth or scaberulous on the angles upwards, striate, leafy, 75-90 cm tall. Leaves rigid, complicate at the base, otherwise flat, long-acuminate, scabrous on the margins, glaucous, (3-)4-6 mm wide; sheaths of the cauline leaves with a scarious obtuse appendage opposite the blade. Inflorescence consisting of 1 or 2 distant, loose, corymbiform anthelas, 25-50 cm long; terminal anthela much larger and more branched than the lateral one. Bracts leafy, sheathing, shorter than the inflorescence. Branches unequal, suberect or obliquely patent, up to 20 cm; branchlets up to 4 cm. Spikelets in fascicles of 2-3(-7), lanceolate-subulate, acute, 2-4-flowered, ferrugineous to casta-neous, 6-9 mm long. Lowest flower bisexual, upper ones ♂. Glumes 6-8, subdistichous, mucronulate. Bristles in the bisexual flower 6, antrorsely scabrous, exceeding the nut. in the second flower 2-4, in the other flower(s) absent. Stamens 3; anthers 3-4 mm. Style shortly bilobed or almost undivided. Style-base narrowly conical, almost subulate, compressed, not grooved, much narrower and longer than the nut, antrorsely scabrous on the angles, stramineous, up to 6 mm long. Nut obovate or broadly elliptic, compressed, transversely undulate-rugulose, sparsely hispidulous at the top, shining brown, 3-4 by 2-2½ mm. Epidermal cells longitudinally stretched, linear.
In swamps, swampy places in savannahs, on river-banks, at low altitudes.
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