Tricostularia pauciflora

Small tufted perennial. Culms 1-noded or nodeless, terete, glabrous, 10–45 cm high, 0.5–1.2 mm diam. Leaf-blades often much reduced, to 6 cm long; sheaths straw-coloured to dark red-brown, dull. Spikelets solitary or 2 or 3 in a terminal cluster (rarely with a second distant cluster), terete, 4–6 mm long, each spikelet with an uppermost bisexual flower and lower 1 or 2 male, sterile or bisexual; involucral bract somewhat shorter than inflorescence. Glumes subdistichous, long-acute to acute, keeled especially near apex, glabrous except for occasional hairs on keel, very pale red-brown to very dark red-brown (apex often darker than body); fertile glumes 3.5–4.0 mm long; hypogynous scales whitish, minute. Nut obscurely trigonous, obovoid to obpyriform, puberulous especially near apex, dull, mid-brown to dark brown, 2.2–2.5 mm long, 1.2–1.5 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.