Rhizome stout, covered with fibrous remains of scales. Culms several to a clump, 30-60 cm tall, slender, smooth. Basal sheaths bladeless, purple-brown to dark brown, usually split into fibers. Leaves shorter or longer than culm, blades 3-10 mm wide, flat, leathery, stiff, scabrous along margins and on abaxial midvein. Involucral bracts sheathed, sheath 1-3.5 cm, lower involucral bracts leaflike, upper ones bristlelike, shorter than to nearly equaling subtending spike. Spikes 4 or 5; terminal spike male, linear-cylindric, 35-50 × 1.5-2 mm; lateral spikes female, linear-cylindric to cylindric, 20-40 × 1.5-3 mm, loosely flowered; peduncles slender, erect, 1.5-7 cm. Female glumes obovate-oblong, 2.5-3.5 mm, membranous, 1-3-veined green costa excurrent into a mucro, apex rounded. Utricle longer than glume, ovate-fusiform, 2.5-4 mm, puberulent or more densely pubescent, prominently many veined, base attenuate into a short stipe, apex attenuate into a short beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlet tightly enveloped, ovate, trigonous, 2-2.5 mm, apex discoid-annulate; style base thickened, persistent; stigmas 3.

Forests, ditch sides on mountain slopes; 800-1600 m. Anhui, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Zhejiang [Japan, Philippines].