Stems 30-50 cm high, simple, wiry, smooth. Sheaths 6-10 cm long, closely convolute and firm in the lower half, loosely convolute and papery in the upper half, considerably lacerate above the middle, buff coloured, speckled with red-brown. Male spikelets 1-1.5 cm long, elliptic, cernuous, many in a panicle 4-6 cm long. Bracts loosely imbricate, papery, mostly 8-9 mm long, ovate-lanceolate, acute, mucronulate, pale, tinted red-brown towards the apex. Perianth about 4.5 mm long, elliptic, much compressed: outer segments oblong, acute, cartilaginous; the lateral navicular, carinate: inner segments obtuse, membranous. Female spikelets 1-3 in a spicate or paniculate cyme, 2-2.5 cm long, elliptic. Bracts loosely imbricate, about 1.5 cm long, oblong-lanceolate, acute, papery, pale. Perianth 6-7 mm long, 5.5-6 mm wide at the middle, broadly ovate-orbicular: outer segments lanceolate, acute; the lateral navicular, apiculate, distinctly longer than all the others, with a pale-membranous wing about 1.75 mm wide; the anterior slightly shorter, almost flat: inner segments slightly shorter than the anterior, ovate-lanceolate, acute, membranous. Ovary rotundate, scabrid, thickened at the edges, surmounted by a solitary style.
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