Erect shoots 150–400 cm, not glaucous; flowering shoots 1–2 cm thick in middle; stems 3–4 mm thick near spike. Leaves: sheath sides membranous, margin broadly clear, summit tapered to blade or with persistent, membranous auricles; mucilage glands at sheath-blade transition orange-brown, numerous on entire sheath and proximal 1–10 cm of blade; widest blades on shoot 6–18 mm wide when fresh, 5–15 mm when dry; distal blade about equaling inflorescence. Inflorescences: staminate spike separated from pistillate by (0–)1–8 cm of naked axis, ca. 1.4 X longer than pistillate, 1 cm thick at anthesis; staminate scales straw-colored to mostly bright orange-brown, variable in same spike, linear to cuneate, often laciniate distally, to 3–4 × 0.3 mm; pistillate spikes in flower when fresh bright cinnamon-brown with whitish stigmas (drying brownish), later orange- (to medium) brown, in fruit generally paler as stigmas and often bracteole blades wear off, ca. 6–35 cm × 5–6 mm in flower, 15–25 mm in fruit; compound pedicels in fruit peg-like, ca. 0.6–0.9 mm; pistillate bracteole blades forming spike surface before flowering, later slightly exceeded by stigmas and slightly exceeding pistil hairs, straw-colored to bright orange-brown, much paler than to nearly same color as stigmas, irregularly narrowly to broadly spatulate or lanceolate, 0.8 × 0.1–0.3 mm, mostly wider than stigmas, apex variable in same inflorescence or different plants, acute or acuminate. Staminate flowers 5 mm; anthers 2–2.5 mm, thecae yellow, apex bright orange-brown; pollen in single grains. Pistillate flowers 2 mm in flower, 8–9 mm in fruit; pistil-hair tips straw-colored to orange-brown in mass, usually with 1 subapical bright orange-brown, generally enlarged cell; stigmas often deciduous in fruit, in flower erect, elongating, bending to form surface mat, white in flower when fresh, later bright orange-brown, narrowly linear-lanceolate, ca. 1 × 0.1 mm; carpodia slightly exceeded by pistil hairs, usually evident at fruiting spike surface, straw-colored, orange-spotted, apex broadly rounded. 2n = 30.