Soft-based annual, 10-50 cm high, stems short. Leaves erect or (mostly) in a fan, sheath entire, red-brown to tan or brown, papillose-rugulose, eligulate or with short ligule, blade flattened, 1-5 mm wide, papillose-scabrid, margins thin or slightly thickened, papillose-scabrid. Scapes terete or subterete, distally 0.5-1 mm thick, ecostate to tricostate or striate, surfaces rugulose-papillose or scaberulous, rarely smooth; spikes ovoid to short-cylindric, ellipsoid or subglobose, 0.3-0.7(-1) cm, bracts many in a spiral, tan to red-brown, with narrow, green to maroon dorsal area, empty bracts smaller than and grading upward into larger fertile ones, these obovate to suborbicular, 3-5 mm, rounded, entire, convex, ecarinate. Lateral sepals free, very inequilateral, broad, ca. 3 mm, strongly curved, keel broad, thin, irregularly ciliate or ciliolate; petals broadly obovate, 2-2.5 mm; staminodes reduced, beardless; anthers 0.5 mm. Capsule 1.5-2.5 mm, placentation basal, valves eseptate; seeds ellipsoid or ovoid, 0.4-0.5 mm, apically truncate, minutely apiculate, amber.
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