Plants perennial, mostly densely cespitose, (10–)20–80 cm, bases pale brown to dull deep brown; rhizomes absent. Culms erect or excurved, filiform to linear. Leaves erect or excurved, shorter than scape; blades filiform to linear, to 1.5 mm wide, margins involute, apex trigonous, tapering. Inflorescences: spikelet clusters 1–several, dense or sparse, when several, either widely spaced or close together, if widely spaced then ovoid to hemispheric, if close together then lobed ellipse or cylinder; leafy bracts filiform, setaceous, overtopping each cluster. Spikelets light redbrown to deep brown, broadly fusiform to ovoid, (2.5–)3.5–4 mm, apex acute to acuminate; fertile scale broadly ovate, strongly convex, (1.5–)2–3 mm, apex acuminate to mucronate, midrib excurrent or not. Flowers: perianth bristles 6, plumose, reaching at least to fruit midbody, often to tubercle tip. Fruits 1(–2) per spikelet, (1.5–)2–2.5 mm; body redbrown or brown, tumidly obovoid or ellipsoid, sometimes obscurely lenticular, (1.2–)1.3–1.8(–2) × 1–1.5 mm; surfaces interruptedly crossrugulose; tubercle narrowly to broadly conic, mostly 0.3–0.5 mm, base flaring, round or indistinctly 2lobed.
