Description
Key Characters:
Growth Form:
Slender annuals or in favorable conditions apparently becoming short-lived perennials, tufted.
Stems:
Culms stiffly erect, (2–)20–50 cm tall, trigonous, smooth, in favorable conditions developing a short rhizome.
Roots:
Fibrous root system.
Leaves:
Leaves simple.
Leaves few, basal.
Blades linear, much shorter than or longer than the culm, 1.5–3 mm wide, blades weakly plicate, subrigid.
Apex acute.
Margins entire.
Sheathing; sheaths reddish brown.
Stipules absent.
Flowers:
Flowers in inflorescences open, forming a simple or partially compound umbelliform corymb, with 2–7 rays 2–6 cm long, or contracted into a head-like cluster 2–5 cm in diameter, occasionally developing 2–5 short rays up to 5 cm long; involucral bracts 3–5, spreading, usually the lower 2–3 surpassing the inflorescence, the longest one up to 30 cm long; spikelets yellowish brown to pale or dark reddish brown, numerous, crowded, 8–40–flowered, digitately disposed, linear-lanceolate, strongly flattened, 5–25 mm long, 1–1.5(–2) mm wide, apex acute, rachilla flexuous, not winged; glumes reddish brown, thin, chartaceous, oblong–ovate to lanceolate–ovate, 1.5–1.8 mm long, the keel 3–nerved, acute, margins narrowly pale and membranous.
Flowers bisexual (perfect).
Corolla (petals) absent.
Ovary superior; styles slender, twice as long as achene; stigmas 2.
Fruit:
Achenes dark brown; oblong–obovate; laterally flattened; ca. 1 mm long; the sides minutely puncticulate.
Seeds 1; seed coat thin; free from pericarp; embryo basal; endosperm abundant.
Ploidy:
2n = 96; 98
Habitat:
Common on open or grassy; often disturbed areas; from mesic coastal sites to mesic and wet forest.
Elevation Range:
0–1,420 m.