Chaetospora

Erect perennials, forming dense tussocks, with short, woody, branched, pseudobulbous rhizomes. Culms not noded, slender, rigid, usually sulcate when dried, smooth. Leaves all basal and spirally arranged, with well developed blade, pseudopetiole obscure or absent; blade dorsiventral, flat to channelled above, scaberulous on the margins; ligule absent. Lowest inflorescence bract spreading to sub-erect, similar to the leaves, much longer than the inflorescence. Inflorescence condensed-compound, with several short internodes, consisting of 3–6 close fascicles of branches in the bract axils, but dense and appearing head-like; branches 1 at each node, slightly unequal, not exserted from the sheath, rigid, not flexuous. Spikelets subsessile, in clusters of 1–3, usually 1- or 3-flowered, the rachis straight, not elongated or flexuous. Glumes 5–9, acute or attenuate, spiro-distichous, puberulent or glabrous, scaberulous, ciliate or denticulate on the margins and midrib; basal 4 or more glumes sterile; upper glume with a bisexual flower. Hypogynous bristles 6, ± linear, flat to terete, margins with dense to scattered, white, short, antrorse, ciliate or ciliate-plumose hairs, persistent on the nutlet. Stamens 3; filaments glabrous; anthers twisted when dry. Style 3-fid, slender, of similar thickness throughout, mostly deciduous, a remnant often remaining on the nut. Nut obovoid, obpyriform or turbinate, with 3 whitish ribs, irregularly reticulate to rugulose or tuberculate at 40× magnification, shortly hispidulous to scabrous or tuberculate at the apex, otherwise glabrous.