Rhizome thick, woody, rigid. Culms lateral, 30-70 cm tall, slender, obtusely trigonous, smooth, scabrous above, clothed at base with dark brown sheaths disintegrating into fibers. Leaves shorter than culm, blades pale green, linear, 3-5 mm wide, flat, revolute, upper margins scabrous, apex acuminate. Involucral bracts shortly bladed, long sheathing. Spikes 3 or 4, distant; terminal spike male, cylindric, 3-6 cm; lateral spikes mostly female, sometimes bearing few to many male flowers at apex, cylindric, 1.5-4.5 cm, slightly or rather densely flowered; peduncles erect. Female glumes brown or white, ovate-lanceolate or oblong-lanceolate, 5-5.5 mm, green 3-veined costa excurrent into a scabrous awn at emarginate apex. Utricles green, slightly longer than glume, obliquely patent, ovate (excluding beak), 6-8 mm (including beak), subleathery, glabrous, many veined, base contracted, apex abruptly contracted into a scabrous long beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlets loosely enveloped, ovate, trigonous, ca. 5 mm (including beak), not constricted on angles at middle, base shortly stipitate, apical beak erect, ca. 1 mm; style base thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Mar-May.

● Roadsides, slopes, forests, streamsides. Hubei, Sichuan, Zhejiang.