Plants cespitose; rhizomes short, tough, fibrous. Culms: fertile ones upright or nearly so; nodes without axillary bulblets. Leaves 3–9 per culm; sheaths of proximal leaves light brown; proximal sheaths and blades with septa few to many, rather inconspicuous; blades 20–35 cm × 5–9 mm. Inflorescences terminal; rays ascending or divaricate (usually both in the same inflorescence), rays often bearing axillary bulblets, proximal branches smooth, distal branches scabrellous to scabrous; bases of involucral bracts green, margins usually speckled with red-brown, rarely solid black, not glutinous. Spikelets in dense clusters of 4–55 (largest cluster with 15 or more), spikelets sessile, ovoid or broadly ovoid, 2–3.5 × 1.3–2.5 mm; scales blackish or occasionally brownish with pale midribs, elliptic or broadly elliptic, 1–1.4(–2) mm, apex mucronate, mucro 0.1–0.2 mm. Flowers: perianth bristles persistent, (4–)5–6, slender, straight or curved, shorter than to equaling achene, with retrorse, thin-walled, round-tipped barbs in distal (0.1–)0.2–0.4, enclosed within scales; styles 3-fid. Achenes pale brown, elliptic or obovate in outline, plumply trigonous, (0.6–)0.7–1.1 × 0.3–0.5 mm. 2n = 56.
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