Annuals, tufted, up to 50 cm high; Stems trigonous; leaves as long as or longer than the stem, 2-5 mm broad; annthela simple or compound, lax, 5-15 cm across; bracts foliaceous, spreading; rays compressed, up to 10 cm long; rhachis of the spike scabrid on the angles; spikelets numerous, linear-oblong, 5-10mm long, glumes loosely imbricating, yellow, broadly ovate or suborbicular, ca 1.3 mm long, keeled muticous or mucronulate; keel 7-nerved, with a narrow, serrate wing towards top; style 3-fid almost to the base, nuts brown, obovoid, triquetrous, about as long as the glumes, apiculate, broadly stipitate.