Description

Key Characters:

Growth Form: Perennials with short, ligneous rhizomes clothed with brown scales and their fibrous remnants.

Stems: culms 40–120 cm tall, 3–7 mm in diameter in lower part, acutely trigonous, the sides slightly concave, smooth.

Roots:

Leaves: Leaves simple. 3–5 per culm. Blades subcoriaceous, flat, linear, as long as to slightly longer than the culm, 8–17 mm wide,. Lower surfaces finely septate–nodulose. Margins entire. Sheaths brown to reddish brown, eventually splitting into fine parallel fibers. Stipules absent.

Flowers: Flowers in inflorescences umbelliform, moderately dense, 4–15 cm long, 5–25 cm wide, rays 5– 18, spreading, 2–15 cm long, unbranched or once branched, spikes cylindrical to oblong–ellipsoid, 2–6 cm long, 1.5–2.7 cm wide, densely bearing numerous spikelets; involucral bracts 5–9, longer than the inflorescence, lower ones up to 35 cm long and 22 mm wide; spikelets yellowish brown or grayish brown, 15–24–flowered, spreading to reflexed, flattened, slightly turgid, narrowly oblong to oblong-lanceolate, 10–14 (–20) mm long, 1.7–3.5 mm wide, apex subacute, rachilla narrowly winged, jointed at base; glumes yellowish–brown, chartaceous with membranous margins, closely imbricate, oblong–ovate, 4–5.5 mm long, 2–2.5 mm wide, finely 4–nerved on each side of midnerve, the midnerve prolonged into a short mucro. Flowers bisexual (perfect). Corolla (petals) absent. Ovary superior.

Fruit: Achenes oblong; trigonous; 2 mm long. Seeds 1; seed coat thin; free from pericarp; embryo basal; endosperm abundant.

Ploidy:

Habitat: Found in grasslands; and open sites including ridges and mesic forest.

Elevation Range: 0–1,200 m.