Herb, dioecious, rhizomatous perennial, forming diffuse patches or compact tussocks to 20 cm across. Rhizomes horizontal, to 20 cm long, c. 1.5 mm diam.; scales scarious, yellow-brown, covering a dense woolly pubescence. Culms crowded or spaced to 5 mm apart, dimorphic; fertile culms slender, erect, straight or slightly flexuose, terete, 20–35 cm long, 0.5–1.0 mm diam., yellowish brown, striate, unbranched or with few erect branches or occasionally clusters of short, barren branchlets from the lower sheaths; internodes few, 3.5–8.5 cm long; lowest internode pubescent; vegetative culms short, branched, sinuous. Sheaths lax, erect or recurved, scarious, striate, light brown, 0.8–1.7 cm long; apex obtuse, with white hairs c. 2 mm long; lamina short or absent. Inflorescence: males with 1–4 spikelets terminal or axillary on erect filiform pedicels; females with spikelets terminal on culm and branches. Male spikelets ovoid, 5–10 mm long, 3–7 mm wide. Female spikelets narrow, 4–6 mm long, c. 2 mm wide; axis elongating in fruit so that glumes are 2–5 mm apart. Male glumes 20–50, all fertile or several lower glumes sterile, tan-brown, ovate, acuminate; apex pilose, 2.7–3.5 mm long; mucro slender, erect, black, 2.0–2.3 mm long. Female glumes 1–9, all fertile, similar to but slightly longer than males; mucro tan-brown, rigid, to 4.5 mm long. Male flowers: tepals 6, hyaline, membranous; outer tepals 2.7–3.1 mm long, keeled, with a few hairs along keel; inner tepals lanceolate, flat, glabrous, 2.6–2.8 mm long; stamens 3; filaments 2.6–3.5 mm long; anthers 1.6–2 mm long. Female flowers: tepals 6, similar to males; styles 2, almost wholly free and stigmatic. Capsule c. 1.8 mm long. Seed oblong-cylindrical, c. 1.2 mm long, with lines of convex cells. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma interrupted by pillar cells.
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