Low, cespitose, smooth, annual 5-30 cm high. Leaves in a fan, 2.5-7 cm, often maroon or red-brown, about as long as scape sheath, sheath about half as long as blade or less, keel often papillose-ciliolate, margin entire, continuous with blade or with auricles, blade flattened, 0.5-1 mm wide, margins narrow, incrassate, pale or dark, smooth or rarely ciliolate. Scapes filiform, distally terete or slightly compressed, ca. 0.5 mm thick, ecostate to slightly bicostate, ribs smooth; spikes ellipsoid becoming turbinate, 4-7 mm, pale red-brown, bracts few, decussate, with strong lance-ovate dorsal area with strong midvein, empty bracts 4, smaller and narrower than the flowering ones and grading into them, these oblong 4.5-5 mm, less keeled, subacute, scarious-margined. Lateral sepals free, subequilateral, oblanceolate 4-5 mm, keel smooth or papillose to ciliolate above middle; petals obovate, ca. 3 mm; staminodes bearded; anthers ca. 1 mm. Capsule ca. 2.5 mm, placentation basal-central, valves eseptate; seeds ovoid to ellipsoid, ca. 0.5 mm, amber.
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