Plants annual (or perennial?); rhizomes usually obscured by culm bases and very short, sometimes vertical and elongated. Culms 4–40 cm × 0.2–0.5 mm. Leaves sometimes sparsely orange-punctate at 10–15X; sheaths usually reddish proximally; distal blade rudimentary to much longer than sheath, often exceeding culm, to 20 cm × 0.2–1 mm. Inflorescences: involucral bract 1, sometimes subtending flower or resembling enlarged floral scale, 2–6(–23) mm. Spikelets 2–5 × 1–2 mm; scales partly or completely dark orange to red-brown, rarely stramineous, midrib greenish to stramineous, not gibbous, obscurely to prominently 3–11-veined, midrib keeled near apex, membranous, hyaline, apex rounded to acute, with mucro less than 0.1 mm; proximal scale to 2 mm; other scales 1.2–1.8 × 1–1.3 mm. Flowers: anthers 0.3–0.6 mm; styles 3-fid or 3-fid and 2-fid. Achenes falling separately from scales, medium to dark brown or stramineous, ellipsoid to obovoid, compressed-trigonous to thickly biconvex, lateral angles usually prominent, abaxial angle prominent to obscure, faces convex or adaxial face slightly concave, 0.8–1 × 0.5–0.7 mm, distinctly papillose at 10–15X to obscurely papillose at 40X, often with thin whitish surface layer. 2n = 30.
