Perennial graminoid herb 14–40 cm high; roots fine, to 7 cm long, not sand-binding. Culms erect, rigid, arising from a compact, bulb-like underground base or cluster of bases, nodeless, terete to compressed, 0.6–1.7 mm diam., often grooved or striate, glabrous, much longer than leaves. Leaves basal, much shorter than the culms, flexuose; sheath 4–7 cm long, straw-coloured with broad hyaline margins, striate, shining, base becoming fibrous with age, distally scabrous to ciliate, margins with scattered cilia; lamina 6–21 cm long, 0.3–0.7 mm wide, canaliculate to involute and appearing terete, tapering to a fine point, slightly curly, margins serrulate, especially in lower half, very finely ciliolate; ligule absent. Basal involucral bracts 2–6, leaf-like, margins very finely ciliolate, 2–10 cm long, surrounding and exceeding inflorescence, the base broadly ovate, pale brown, margins pale brown to translucent. Inflorescence an erect, terminal, elongate head, becoming turbinate, 6–10 mm across, 6–17 mm long, brown, with 3–5 fascicles of 2 or 3 sessile or subsessile spikelets. Spikelets narrow-ovate to oblong-ovate, acute, 5.5–8.0 mm long, chestnut brown, 1-flowered. Glumes 5–9, lowest 3–5 empty, lanceolate or narrowly ovate to ovate, long narrow-acute, pale red-brown, dull, puberulent, keeled, keel often scaberulous, ciliate to glabrous on the margins, fertile glumes 4.5–6.0 mm long. Perianth segments 6, 1.2–2.0 mm long, compressed to bristle-like, plumose, white to red-brown. Style 3-branched, base 2.7–3.5 mm long, branches 1.3–1.5 mm long. Stamens 3; filaments 4.4–6.2 mm long, anthers 1.8–2.5 mm long with a dark red apical appendage 0.5–0.6 mm long. Nutlets 1.3–2.3 mm long, 1.0–1.4 mm diam., dull, grey to red-brown, obpyriform to turbinate or obovoid, attenuate at base, 3-ribbed (trigonous), faces irregularly faintly reticulate to rugulose, apex minutely scabrous and tuberculate. Anatomy = C3.
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