Herb, perennial, dioecious, rhizomatous, with culms and rhizomes arising from a narrow base; rhizomes stout; plants glabrous except for tufts of hairs in the cataphyll and sheath axils; cluster roots present. Culms stout and erect near base, much-branched, striate, with appressed, persistent sheaths; upper branches slender, terete to compressed, flexuose, forming tangled masses. Male spikelets in small clusters at several upper nodes of culm branches, the glumes mostly fertile. Female spikelets solitary at several upper nodes, 1-flowered. Male flowers: tepals 5 (or 6), 2 outer tepals keeled, inner tepals flat; stamens 3, anthers exserted. Female flowers: glumes and tepals reduced to small membranous scales; ovary unilocular, style branches 3 (less often 2), shortly connate. Fruit a capsule (Meney et al. 1999), seeds rarely produced, mature fruit and seed not seen. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 1 layer of elongated peg cells interrupted by pillar cells over some outer vascular bundles, protective cells lacking; central cavity lobed or angular in the lower culm resulting from inner vascular bundles arranged in large aggregations that are separated by a broad band of sclerenchyma from the outer vascular bundles. Most female plants bearing numerous large spikelet-like galls.
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