Schoenus nitens

Perennial, with slender creeping rhizome. Culms erect, rigid, grooved, nodeless, 3–37 cm high, 0.5–1 mm diam. Leaves with blade to 16 cm long; sheath red-brown, smooth or striate, shining; mouth glabrous; ligule present. Inflorescence head-like, loosely hemispherical, or reduced to 1 spikelet, erect, 0.2–1 cm diam.; lowest involucral bract to 6 cm long. Spikelets ovate, acute, 2–3-flowered, 3–5 mm long; glumes 4–7, lowest 1–3 empty, obtuse to broad-acute, red-brown to dark yellow-brown, ± shining, with glabrous, hyaline, red-dotted margins; fertile glumes 2.7–4 mm long; hypogynous bristles 6, plumose, as long as or longer than nut. Nut trigonous, ellipsoid to obovoid, angles not ribbed, smooth or minutely and faintly pitted, glabrous, shining, straw-coloured to golden-brown, 1.1–1.6 mm long, 0.7–1.1 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.