Herb, dioecious, rhizomatous, perennial, forming large dense tussocks or patches to 1 m across, often forming trailing masses. Rhizome shortly horizontal, 2–4 mm diam., pubescence brown; scales light-to red-brown. Culms sometimes dimorphic, mostly terete, slender, much branched, 30–100 cm long, 1.0–1.3 mm diam., finely striate, branches semi-terete, erect or occasionally flexuose, thin and wiry; internodes 6–13, 4.3–9.0 cm long; some culms short, slender and sinuous but all floriferous. Sheaths loose, open almost from base, broad, finely striate; basal sheaths 6–7 mm long; cauline sheaths 5–13 mm long; apex rounded or truncate with caducous hairs and often with a short, narrow, erect, terete, caducous lamina, 0.2–1.2 mm long; margin membranous. Inflorescence: spikelets sessile, axillary and terminal on culms and branches; spathes similar to sheaths, shorter than spikelets. Male spikelets numerous, ovoid to globose, 4–6 mm long. Female spikelets fewer, ellipsoid, 1-flowered, 5.0–7.2 mm long. Male glumes: lower 7 or 8 sterile, upper 3–8 fertile, ovate, brown, apex aristate with marginal hairs, 2.1–2.8 mm long; mucro 0.5–1.2 mm long. Female glumes 8–11, ovate to lanceolate, 2.4–3.6 mm long, attenuate, golden-brown, margins ciliate, mucronate. Male flowers: tepals oblong to spathulate; outer tepals slightly longer, 2.4–2.8 mm long, keel and apex villous; inner tepals flat, with short apical hairs; filaments 2.2–2.9 mm long; anthers 1.6–2.0 mm long. Female flowers: tepals oblong, with a shallow keel, tepals ± equal, 2.3–3.0 mm long. Capsule flattened, often oblique by abortion of one loculus, 2.1–2.4 mm long. Seeds ellipsoid, greyish, striate, c. 1.5 mm long, colliculate with lines of convex cells and a network of narrow ridges. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 1 layer of elongated cells, not interrupted.
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