Perennial with short rhizome occasionally sending out long slender stolons. Stems numerous, densely tufted, erect or obliquely erect, very slender, seta-ceous but rigid, terete, striate, smooth, leafy in the lower part, 5-25 cm by ¼-½ mm. Leaves shorter than the stems, setaceous, canaliculate, scaberulous at the apex; sheaths of the cauline leaves narrowly tubular, not bearded at the mouth, purplish, 1-2 cm long. Inflorescence contracted, dense, almost capitate, 5-12 mm long and wide, consisting of 2-3 approxi-mate fascicles of branches, sometimes a fascicle of 1-3 branches 2-4 cm lower down. Bracts similar to the leaves, the lowest much overtopping the inflorescence. Branches 1-4 to the sheath, undivided, up to 6 mm long (in the distant fascicle up to 15 mm). Spikelets 7-12, shortly peduncled, lanceolate to oblong-lanceolate, acute, 1-3-flowered, dark purple, 3½-4½ by c. 1 mm. Glumes 6-7, lanceolate, acute, scaberulous on the keel in the upper part, glabrous, with narrow whitish hyaline margins, the fertile ones 2½-3½ mm long, the lower 3-4 empty, smaller. Bristles 6, antrorsely scabrous, from about ½ as long as to slightly overtopping the nut, fer-rugineous. Stamens 3; anthers yellow, c. 1½ mm, with shortly (1/5-¼ mm) produced connective. Style 1 mm; stigmas 3, about as long as the style. Nut trigonous, ellipsoid, with somewhat convex sides, 3-ribbed, apiculate, smooth, at first stramineous, shining brown when mature, 1-1⅓ by ½-⅔ mm; epidermal cells very small, obscure.
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