A sedge. It has small rough stiff hairs. It forms tufts and grows 10-80 cm tall. It can have creeping rhizomes. The leaves are 1-15 cm long by 0.2-0.5 mm wide. The flowering shoots can be simple or compound. There can be 2 to many spikelets. The nutlets are pale grey and 1-1.3 mm long by 1 mm wide. They have 3 sides.
Annual herb, up to 300 mm tall. Style base usually falling together with style before nuts shed from spikelet. Nuts pyriform with apex shortly projecting. Glumes broadly ovate, 2.0-3.3 x 2.0-3.4 mm, deep chestnut brown or pale brown.