Plants annual, cespitose, 15–50(–70) cm, glabrous, base soft; rhizomes absent. Leaves distichous, in fans, to ca. 2/3 plant height; sheaths keeled, equitant, margins entire; ligule absent; blades bifacial (flattened in same plane as sheath), narrowly triangularlinear, to 2 mm wide, margins scabrid at least distally. Inflorescences: anthela compound, usually diffuse, branched, broadening upward, often as broad as long; scapes slender, angularly ribbed and/or somewhat compressed distally, 1–1.5 mm wide or thick; involucral bracts exceeded by anthela. Spikelets dark red-brown, broadly ovoid to near round, 2–4 min; fertile scales broadly ovate to orbiculate, 1 mm, glabrous, apex broadly rounded, midrib not excurrent. Flowers: stamens 1–2; styles 3-fid, slender, base dilated, apex pubescent. Achenes pale brown, tumid, obovoid, 1 mm, apiculate, reticulate, with pits narrowly rectangular in 4–6 vertical rows per side, the longitudinal ribs most prominent and mostly warty. 2n = 10.
