Rhizome very short, woody. Stems stout, tufted, erect, triquetrous with flat or slightly concave sides, smooth except just below the inflorescence, surrounded below the leaves by a few bladeless, somewhat fibrous sheaths, 50-150 cm by 3-4 mm. Leaves subbasal, longer than the stems, flat, stiffish, rough-margined, conspicuously septate-nodulose, long-acuminate, light or yellowish green, 6-10 mm wide. Spikelets 3-7, usually close together (lowest 1-2 sometimes distant), the terminal male, peduncled, 3-7 mm thick, the lateral female, cylindrical, very densely flowered, 2.5-5 cm long and 7-15 mm thick, the upper shortly peduncled, the lower on slender, smooth or scabrid peduncles at length pendulous. Lower bracts leaf-like, far exceeding the inflorescence, scarcely sheathing (occasionally long-sheathing in distant spikelets), upper subfoliaceous to setaceous, not sheathing. Glumes oblong or oblong-spathulate, obtuse, translucent, eventually ferrugineous, with 3-nerved green centre, ciliate above, 2-2.5 mm, excurrent into a flat, antrorsely scabrous awn 2-4 mm long. Utricles ovoid or ovoid-lanceolate, obscurely trigonous, strongly and densely many-nerved, coriaceous, glabrous, when ripe widely spreading or even reflexed, somewhat inflated, distinctly stipitate (stipe ⅔-1 mm, in some Australian specimens up to 1.5 mm), greenish to stramineous, 4-5(-7) by 1-1.5 mm, tapering above into a 1.5-2 mm long, smooth, deeply 2-cleft beak (teeth c. 1 mm, divergent). Nut obovoid or ellipsoid, triquetrous, scarcely stipitate, golden or brown, 1.5-1⅔ by 1(-1 1/3) mm. Style continuous with the nut, contorted. Stigmas 3.
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