Slender tufted perennial, occasionally viscid. Culms trigonous or triquetrous, smooth or scabrous, with bases sometimes bulbous, 25–50 cm high, 0.9–2.5 mm diam. Leaves usually septate-nodulose, often curled, often slightly shorter than culms, to 6 mm wide. Inflorescence mostly simple with 3–8 branches to 7 cm long; clusters dense, subdigitate to shortly spicate, hemispherical to globose, to 3 cm diam.; involucral bracts leaf-like, 2–4 much exceeding the inflorescence. Spikelets flattened, 5–20 per cluster, 6–18 mm long, 2–3.5 mm wide in side view, 8–25-flowered; rachilla unwinged to broadly winged, persistent; glume spacing 1.2–1.8 mm; glumes broad-acute with mucro to 0.3 mm long, with 2–4-nerved sides, straw-coloured or golden brown tinged red-brown, 2–3 mm long; stamens 3; style 3-fid. Nut trigonous, obovoid to broad-ellipsoid, yellow-brown, almost as long as glume, 1.5–2 mm long, 0.6–0.9 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
