Rhizomes short, woody. Culms 25-100 cm tall, 3-angled, stiff, scabrous, obscurely nodose, clothed at base with several pale brown leaf sheaths. Leaves shorter than culm; sheath very long; leaf blade 5-6 mm wide, stiff, veins and margin scabrous. Involucral bracts 1 or 2, leaflike, overtopping inflorescence, both surfaces and margin scabrous. Inflorescence a terminal simple anthela or pseudolateral head; rays 7-12, to 6 cm, ± slender. Spikelets solitary or in clusters of 2-6, brown, narrowly ovoid, 7-9 × 1.5-2 mm, ca. 10-flowered, basally several glumes empty. Glumes reddish brown, lanceolate-oblong to oblong-ovate, ca. 4 mm, with 1-3 dark yellow veins, apex acute to obtuse. Perianth bristles 6, longer than nutlet, antrorsely scabrous. Stamens 3; anthers linear, ca. 2.5 mm. Stigmas 3. Nutlet yellow, obovoid, less than 1/2 as long as subtending glume, compressed 3-sided. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.
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