Japan Flora: Plant tufted, forming a large clump; culms slender, rather firm, 40-80 cm. long; leaves with rather stiff yellowish green to bright green blades (2-) 3-4 mm. wide, the basal shMths brown; spikes numerous, androgynous, narrowly cylindric, 1-3 cm. long, 2-3 mm. thick, often branched at the base, binate to ternate, stramineous, nod­ding; peduncles slender, branched, scabrous, exserted from the sheath of the bracts, the lower bracts leaflike, long-sheathing; pistillate scales ovate, acute, ferrugineous; perigynia longer than the scales, 2.5-27 mm. long, nearly erect, elliptic, brown­ish, membranous, distinctly nerved, planoconvex or unequally biconvex, sparsely hispidulous on the nerves, abruptly short- beaked, with a minutely 2-toothed hyaline tip; stigmas 2, shorter than the perigynium.  Aug.-Sept. Dry open woods near the seacoast; Honshu (s. Kanto, westw. to s. Kinki】 along the Pacific side), Shikoku (?), Kyushu. Ryukyus, Formosa, s. China, and Philippines.

var. abscondita T. Koyama. Rhi­zomes decumbent; culms very scabrous, short, mostly hidden among the leaves; spikes not branched; perigynia very short- beaked or nearly beakless. Honshu (Pacific coast in Mikawa Prov.)