Rhizome long stoloniferous. Culms tufted, 5-20 cm tall, slender, compressed triquetrous, smooth on lower part and scabrous on angles of upper part, few red-brown and bladeless sheathed and rudimentary sheathed at base, rudimentary sheaths usually disintegrating into fibers. Leaves shorter or slightly longer than culm, blades 1-1.5 mm wide, scabrous on upper surface and margins, sometimes slightly involute on margins. Involucral bracts scalelike, lowermost long awned at apex, enclosing culm at base. Spikes 2 or 3, uppermost female spike and male spike approximate, lowermost female spike rather remote; terminal spike male, clavate, 1-1.5 cm, subsessile; lateral spikes female, globose or oblong, 5-8 mm, densely several to 10-flowered, sessile. Female glumes red-brown, ovate or broadly ovate, ca. 3 mm, membranous, with 1 midrib, margins white hyaline, apex acute. Utricles yellowish green, slightly brownish at maturity, first obliquely patent, later nearly horizontally divaricate, globose-obovate, obtusely trigonous, ca. 3 mm, smooth, shiny, nerveless, base broadly cuneate, margins white hyaline, apex abruptly contracted into a very short beak, orifice obliquely truncate. Nutlets dark brown, obovate or broadly obovate, trigonous, ca. 2 mm, base cuneate, apex mucronate; style base thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jun-Sep.

● Alpine meadows, mountain slopes, ditch sides; 2000-3900 m. Gansu, Nei Mongol, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang.