small, glabrous, tufted, annual; stems 1–7 in. long, slender, each bearing 1–3 spikelets in a small head; leaves 1–3 in. long, setaceous, usually present, though the uppermost sheath in the Cape examples is often leafless or very nearly so; spikelets 1–3, sessile, 1/10 in. long, ovoid, many-flowered, pale, more or less marked with chestnut-red; bract usually 1/4– 1/2 in. long, suberect, resembling the leaves, persistent; flower-glumes ovate, hardly acute, somewhat keeled, falling off successively from the base of the spikelet; hypogynous bristles 0; stamens usually 2; anthers linear-oblong, scarcely apiculate; style nearly as long as the nut, linear, glabrous, branches 3 as long as the style; nut 2/5 the length of the glume, sessile, trigonous, ellipsoid, pyramidal at the top and bottom, yellow-brown, appearing under a low magnifier to have 12–18 longitudinal ribs and to be somewhat 12–18-gonal, by reason that the outermost cells of the nut are transverse-oblong, and superimposed in regular vertical series. null
