Mostly low and slender, annual or short-lived, smoothish herbs, 5-40 cm high, stems short. Leaves erect or in fans, 2-15(-20) cm, sheaths eciliate, stramineous to brown or red-brown, entire, keeled, keel often thickened, shining brown, sometimes scabro-ciliate; blades variably flattened, 1-2.5 mm wide, margins thin or a narrow thickened brown band, smooth, rarely papillose. Scapes distally terete, 0.3-0.8 mm thick, finely striate, mostly ecostate or with 2 papillose ribs; spikes ovoid to subglobose, ellipsoid or cylindric, 0.3-2 cm, bracts several to many in a spiral, with broad dorsal area, the lower few empty, slightly smaller than and grading into the flowering ones, these obovate, low-auricled, ca. 2-4 mm, rounded, convex, ecarinate, entire to erose. Lateral sepals free, strongly inequilateral, curved, 3-4 mm, keel wide, coarsely and irregularly ciliate to ciliolate or papillose; petals obovate, 2-4 mm; staminodes bearded; anthers 0.5-0.7 mm. Capsule ca. (1-)2 mm, placentation basal, valves eseptate; seeds ellipsoid to fusiform, 0.5-0.9 mm, amber.
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