Leaves filiform, 3--5 cm × 0.5--1 mm, veins 2 or 3. Scapes 2--5, ca. 10 cm, slender, 2--4-ribbed; sheath 2.5--3.2 cm; receptacle subglabrous; heads black, subglobose to turbinate, ca. 2 × 2.5 mm, 7- or 8-flowered; involucral bracts blackish, orbicular to ovate, membranous, ca. 2 × 1.3 mm, glabrous or inconspicuously ciliate; floral bracts obovate to oblanceolate-boatlike, glabrous or ciliate. Male flowers: sepals spathelike, 1.3--1.5 mm, glabrous, apex 3-lobed, lobes triangular to narrowly ovate; petals 3, linear, small, glabrous, gland blackish to brownish; anthers black. Female flowers: sepals 3, free, elliptic to elliptic-lanceolate, margin sparsely hairy, proximal hairs longer than distal ones; petals 3, free, elliptic-oblanceolate, anterior one slightly larger than others, membranous, adaxially villous at center, apex acute; ovary 3-loculed; style 3-cleft. Seeds ovoid, ca. 0.7 mm; testa hexagonally reticulate, prickles absent. Fl. and fr. about Sep.

* Marshland margins; ca. 3100 m. NW Yunnan (Nujiang Lisu Zu Zizhizhou).