stems erect, 4–5 ft. high, stout, 4-sided, olive-coloured, puncticulate, much and repeatedly branched; ultimate branches spreading, filiform; fertile branches longer than the sterile; leaf-sheaths 1–2 in. long, closely convolute, lanceolate, mucronate, coriaceous, thinner at the upper margins, nervoso-striate; smaller sheaths white-spotted, with 2 deep, hyaline lobes above; apex prolonged into a curved foliaceous mucro; male spikelets numerous in loose, terminal, slightly branched panicles, each ovato-oblong or turbinate, about 2 lin. long; spathe nearly as long as the spikelet; bracts oblong, acute, subcoriaceous, thinner at the margins, shortly mucronulate; perianth-segments oblong; lateral conduplicate, villous-carinate; keel glabrous (glabrescent?); inner similar, smaller, flat or slightly incurved at the margins; anthers oblong, apiculate; female spikelets in panicled cymes, each about 2 lin. long, oblong-ovate or turbinate, 1–2-flowered; bracts and perianth as in the male; staminodes strap-shaped, minute; ovary 3-lobed, 3-celled; capsule 3-lobed, or by abortion 2–1-celled, scarcely shorter than the persistent perianth. null
