Plants tufted or tangled, 0.3-0.4 m tall, compact. Fertile culms branching, striate, olivaceous, 0.3-0.4 m tall, diameter at apex 0.5-0.7 mm. Sheaths loosely convoluted, 12-20 mm long, brown, upper 1/3 in color and texture abruptly different from the base, and soon decaying. Male inflorescence 13-22 x 4-6 mm; spathes caducous, taller than spikelets, cartilaginous; flowers not aggregated into spikelets; bracts taller than flowers, 8-12 mm long, linear, acute, lax, chartaceous or membranous. Male flower 3-4 mm long; tepals all the same, chartaceous or membranous, linear, glabrous; anthers 1.6-2.1 mm long; pistillode absent. Female inflorescence with 1 spikelet; spathes shorter than the spikelet, persistent, coriaceous; spikelet obovate, apex rounded, 15-20 mm long, with 1 flower and 4-6 sterile bracts; bracts taller than flowers, 10-15 mm long, oblong, acuminate, cartilaginous. Female flower without a fleshy pedicel; tepals all the same, oblong, truncate to rounded, membranous, glabrous and smooth; outer whorl 1.5-2 mm long; inner whorl 1-1.5 mm long; staminodes absent; styles 2, plumose, seated on a stylopodium; ovary unilocular, indehiscent. Nut 4-5 x 3-3.5 mm, oblong, in transect rounded, brown, pitted, cap four-lobed, or with two large lobes and two incisions, almost as tall as the nut itself; perianth persistent, membranous, shorter than nut; elaiosome absent.
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