Annual, with fibrous roots. Stems solitary or tufted, slender, trigonous below, compressed above, striate, glabrous and smooth, 10-30(-40) cm by ½-1 mm. Leaves basal (and 1 cauline at the base of the stem), much shorter than the stems, flat or conduplicate, rather weak, gradually attenuate, scaberulous on the margins near the apex, pale green, 1-2 mm wide. Inflorescence capitate, semiglobose to globose, dense, c. 1½ (to nearly 2) cm across. Bracts 3-6, unequal, patent or reflexed, sheathless, not keeled, densely ciliate at the dilated base, rather short, the longest usually 2-3 times as long as the inflorescence, more rarely up to 5 cm. Spikelets linear-lanceolate, compressed, 2-flowered, ferrugineous, 6-8 mm long; lower flower ♀, upper one ♂ (very rarely with a sterile pistil). Glumes 6, distichous, acute, keeled, the 4th distinctly (c. 2 mm) shorter than the 5th. Bristles in the ♀ flower 6, rigid, antrorsely scabrous, exceeding the style-base, 5-6(-7) mm long, exserted from the somewhat gaping spikelet, in the ♂ flower 0-4, shorter. Stamens 2 (very rarely 3); anthers destitute of pollen at the base, c. 1½ mm. Style shortly bilobed. Style-base strongly compressed, triangular, scabrous, stramineous, slightly (sometimes hardly) contracted at the base, ¾-1 by 0.4-0.6 mm. Nut oblong or obovate-oblong, strongly dorsiventrally compressed, papillose-tuberculate, blackish, the margins bordered by a whitish line, 2-2% by 0.6-0.9 mm; epidermal cells minute, isodiametric.
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