Perennial. Stems robust, smooth or slightly scabrid, up to 4 m tall by up to 8 mm thick. Leaves in the middle part of the stems (and lower bracts) clustered in pseudo-whorls of 3-5, gradually narrowed upwards, scabrous on the margins and the main nerves in the upper part, glabrous or puberulous at the base, up to 13 mm wide; sheaths narrow, glabrous or puberulous, wingless to rather broadly winged; contraligule very short, broadly rounded, ciliate. Inflorescence oblong, decompound, usually very dense, rarely rather loose, the terminal panicle up to 25 cm long, the lateral ones 2-3 together, on long peduncles; branches patent; primary bracts shorter than to about as long as the inflorescence, secondary ones setaceous. Spikelets in clusters of 2-3, uni-sexual, light or reddish brown, 4-5 mm long; ♂ spikelets lanceolate; stamens 3; anthers linear, c. 2 mm long; ♀ spikelets ovate, rounded at the base. the ♂ part reduced to a sterile glume; glumes ovate or broadly ovate, very acute, stramineous to purplish, with green keel. Cupula large and thick, c. 2 mm broad. Disk very large, cyathiform, coriaceous, ½-% as high as the nut (sometimes almost completely enveloping it), 1½-2 mm high, strongly longitu-dinally plicate, halfway or less 3-lobed, at first yellowish, finally red; lobes broadened upwards, very obtuse, denticulate-crenulate, their margins contiguous or somewhat overlapping. Nut slightly shorter than the glumes, depressed-globose, terete, umbonulate, sparsely pilose, glabrescent, cancellate, shining, olivaceous-brown to greyish black, c. 2 mm Ø.
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Perennials. Culms 2-4 m tall, 6-7 mm wide, 3-angled, glabrous. Leaves ± in whorls of 3; sheaths ca. 4 cm, papery, glabrous, basal ones winged; contraligule nearly semicircular, very short, margin ciliate; leaf blade linear, ca. 40 × 1-1.3 cm, thickly papery, slightly scabrous, apically attenuate. Involucral bracts leaflike, basalmost to 25 cm, sheathing; bractlets setaceous, laterally hairy, base dilated. Inflorescences compound paniculate, with several branches; lateral branches often 2 or 3 in a cluster, 6-7 × ca. 10 cm, spreading, axes angled. Spikelets 1 or 2 in a cluster, brown, ca. 5 mm, unisexual, basal glumes distichous. Male spikelets oblong-ovoid, apex truncate; glumes rust-colored to brown, 2-3.5 mm, membranous, basal ones keeled and with a cuspidate apex. Female spikelets narrowly ovoid, apex acuminate; glumes broadly ovate-lanceolate, ovate, or oblong-ovate, keeled. Male flowers: stamens 3; anthers linear, ca. 1.2 mm; connective apex protruding, ca. 1/4 as long as anther. Female flowers: stigmas 3. Disk brown, purple, yellowish, or bright shiny red, cup-shaped, 1/2-4/5 height of nutlet and enclosing it, 3-lobed; lobes smooth, shiny, apex dentate. Nutlet flattened globose, ca. 1.5 × 2-2.5 mm, with hexagonal reticulation, sparsely pubescent, apex cuspidate. Fl. and fr. Apr.
Dry open places, thickets, and forests, but also in swamps and swampy forests, at low altitudes (up to 500 m); often dominant.
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