Plants perennial, cespitose, 10–50 cm; rhizomes absent. Culms slender, ± filiform, leafy, terete to bluntly trigonous. Leaves shorter than culm; blades spreading to ascending, ± filiform, proximally flat, 0.5–1(–1.5) mm, apex tapering, trigonous. Inflorescences: spikelet clusters 1–3, loose to dense, widely spaced to close together, turbinate to hemispheric; leafy bracts setaceous, mostly exceeding spikelet clusters. Spikelets dark redbrown, lanceovoid, 2.5–3.5(–4) mm, apex acute; fertile scales ovate, 2–3.5 mm, apex acute or acuminate, rarely minutely awned. Flowers: bristles 6, of various length, mostly extending from fruit midbody to tubercle base, antrorsely barbellate. Fruits 1–2 per spikelet, (2–)2–2.5 mm; body brown with pale center, lenticular, broadly ellipsoid, 1.5–1.7 × 1.2–1.3 mm, surfaces nearly smooth or very finely cancellate; tubercle flat, triangular with short-oblong, blunttipped nose, or triangularsubulate, 0.5–0.8 mm.
