glabrous; stems clustered on a very short woody rhizome, 3–11 in. long, slender; leaves often 2/3 the length of the stem, 1/15– 1/10 in. broad; spikelet 1 (rarely 2 or 3), 1/2 by 1/5 in. and few-flowered, or in fruit 1 in. long and many-flowered; bract suberect, rarely much overtopping the spikelet; spikelet greenish-white or yellowish, in the young state much flattened (resembling Cyperus) with the fertile glumes apparently distichous; in ripe spikelets, though the lowest glumes may be nearly 2-ranked, the scars of the glumes are perfectly spiral on the rhachilla; glumes boat-shaped, ovate, without nerves except those forming keel, minutely mucronate; stamens 3; anthers oblong-linear, muticous; nut rather large, less than 1/2 the length of the glume, triquetrous, obovoid, almost stalked, straw-coloured or scarcely brown, without striations, but often minutely tubercled; style longer than the nut, hairy, slightly thickened at the base, completely deciduous with its base, branches 3 linear, shortish. null
