Herb, dioecious, caespitose perennial, forming small dense tussocks. Cataphylls glossy-brown, scarious, extending up the culm for a short distance and covering a brown woolly pubescence. Culms simple, slender, terete, 0.8–1.0 mm diam., 20–40 cm long, striate, grey-green with a covering of pale, closely appressed, fan-hairs; internodes 8.5–11.5 cm long. Sheaths 7–13 mm long, brown, ± glabrous, apex acute to acuminate; lamina narrow, 1–6 mm long; membranous margin 2–3 mm wide. Inflorescence: male spikelets erect or drooping on short filiform pedicels, the pedicels whitish with a minute tomentum; females crowded in compact fascicles, the fascicles solitary and terminal, or several at the uppermost nodes. Male spikelets ellipsoid, 4–7 mm long, 2–5 mm diam., with c. 10–18 glumes, all fertile or the lowest glume sterile; glumes ovate, acutely acuminate, 3–4 mm long, brown, glabrous, membranous margin indistinct or absent. Female fascicles irregularly globose, to 1.5 cm long and c. 1 cm diam., with numerous flowers each subtended by glumes; glumes narrow-lanceolate to narrow-obovate, 2.5–5.0 mm long, red-brown-hyaline, glabrous, acute. Male flowers: tepals 5, brown-hyaline, membranous, apical margin irregular; outer tepals obovate, acute to acuminate, keeled, 1.5–2.0 mm long, the keel minutely and sparsely barbed; inner tepals spathulate, obtuse, 1.0–1.5 mm long; stamens 3; filaments 0.5–0.7 mm long; anthers 0.6–1.0 mm long. Female flowers pedicellate, pedicels c. 0.5 mm long, glabrous or partly ciliate; tepals 6; outer tepals linear, obtuse to acute, 2.0–2.7 mm long, very pale brown to hyaline, the base weakly keeled, the margin minutely toothed, one outer tepal slightly longer; inner tepals filiform, 1.0–1.5 mm long, hyaline, glabrous or minutely ciliate; style unbranched, filiform, brown, 1.0–1.5 mm long. Nut narrow-oblong, trigonous, 1.0–1.5 mm long, brown. Seed narrow-oblong, cream-coloured, c. 1 mm long. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 2–4 layers of short cells, interrupted by pillar cells and partial sclerenchyma ridges opposite the outer vascular bundles, central cavity absent.
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