Herb, dioecious, rhizomatous, perennial, forming large dense tussocks, culms often bending and trailing. Rhizomes short, pubescent, 3.5–5.0 mm diam.; scales light brown. Culms usually not dimorphic, terete, striate, 30–100 cm long, 1–2 mm diam., unbranched below the inflorescence but with numerous elongated erect, slender, straight inflorescence branches, glabrous. Cataphylls 0.5–1.0 cm long. Sheaths persistent, appressed, striate, glabrous, truncate to acute, red-brown, c. 1.0–2.0 cm long; lamina not developed or if present erect, c. 1 mm long; with a narrow membranous margin. Inflorescence of numerous narrow spikelets terminal or sessile in the axils at many upper nodes of branches. Male spikelets narrow ellipsoid, 4.5–5.2 mm long, with 1–3 flowers. Female spikelets similar to males but longer, 4.0–7.0 mm long, with 1 or 2 flowers. Male glumes c. 7, all fertile; ovate, mucronate, 2.2–3.2 mm long, brown, ciliate with very short white hairs; mucro to c. 1.5 mm long. Female glumes: several sterile lower glumes and 1 or 2 fertile glumes; linear to ovate, mucronate, 3.0–4.5 mm long, red-brown, with marginal hairs; mucro to c. 2 mm long. Flowers: tepals 6. Male flowers: tepals glabrous, 2 outer tepals keeled, linear to spathulate, glabrous, acute to cuspidate, tepals equal, 3.4–4.0 mm long; stamens 3, anthers exserted. Female flowers: tepals broader than males, oblanceolate to oblong, acute to mucronate, yellow to red-brown, often ciliate along margin and keel; outer tepals slightly longer, 3.4–4.0 mm long usually ciliate; ovary loculi and style branches 2. Capsule ellipsoid, often oblique by abortion of 1 locule, 3.3–6.0 mm long. Seeds ellipsoid, c. 2 mm long, striate with longitudinal lines of convex cells forming ridges. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 1 layer of elongated cells, interrupted by greatly enlarged epidermal cells which meet and sometimes interrupt the parenchyma sheath opposite short sclerenchyma girders over outer vascular bundles.
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