Perennial. Stems slender, smooth, naked in the lower part, 30-100 cm by 1-3 mm, the base densely covered with the decayed, finally fibrous, dull brown remains of old leaf-sheaths. Leaves in a basal rosette and moreover 1-3 distant on the stem (their sheaths not overlapping), very gradually narrowed to the long, setaceous tip, glabrous or slightly pubescent, scabrid on the margins, 5-7 mm wide; sheaths of the stem-leaves and bracts narrow, not winged, stramineous, glabrous, the mouth truncate or emarginate, ciliate, sometimes somewhat convex. Inflorescence narrow, elongate, 15-40 cm long, consisting of a terminal panicle and several (up to 5) distant fascicles of erect, compound lateral panicles; lower primary bracts much exceeding their panicles, the upper ones gradually shorter; secondary bracts setaceous, long, standing out from the panicles; peduncles of lateral panicles solitary or binate at the nodes, scabrid, 0-5 cm exserted from the sheaths. Spikelets ♂ and bisexual, in dense clusters of (3-)5-7, brown, the ♂ ones lanceolate, 4-5 mm long, the bisexual ones ovate in fruit, 3½-4½ mm long, the ♂ part 3-4 mm; glumes ovate, acute, sparsely hairy; stamens 3; anthers linear, c. 2 mm long. Cupula urceolate, with brown margin, thick, spongy. Disk thin, reflexed, not lobed, narrower than the base of the nut. Nut ovoid, with somewhat convex sides, obtusely trigonous, rounded at the base, acuminate, shortly beaked (beak c. ⅓ mm long), smooth, white or finally discoloured, covered with bundles of patent, stiff, whitish, short hairs, finally more or less glabrescent, c. 2 by 1⅓-1½ mm.
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