Herb, perennial, dioecious or female only and parthenocarpic, caespitose; often small plants with few culms but sometimes to 15 cm across at base; cluster roots present. Cataphylls lanceolate, scarious, brown with red-brown hairs, partly covering a dense, woolly, red-brown basal pubescence. Culms erect, terete to compressed, 30–60 cm long, c. 1 mm diam., striate, glabrous, grey-green or dull yellow-green, usually branched, the branches erect and usually floriferous, bearing few spikelets or, if barren, then often flexuose; internodes several. Sheaths closely appressed, brown, scarious, striate, glabrous, 1.0–2.5 cm long; apex acute to acuminate with a narrow, caducous, membranous margin and a filiform lamina 5–25 mm long, the lamina longer on the lower sheaths. Spathes ovate, brown, acute, matt-surfaced, 3–5 mm long. Male spikelets on filiform pedicels at the uppermost node(s), ovoid, laterally compressed, 7–10 mm long, 4–6 mm wide, with up to 2 sterile lower glumes and c. 10–30 fertile upper glumes; glumes broad-lanceolate, c. 4–5 mm long, brown, very shortly ciliate (margin), acuminate to subulate, usually with a short mucro c. 0.5 mm long. Female spikelets at the uppermost node(s), on a short axis usually angled away from the culm, ovoid, 5–9 mm long, 2.5–4.0 mm wide; glumes all fertile or up to 3 sterile lower glumes and c. 5–10 fertile glumes, broad-ovate, 2.8–3.0 mm long, brown, not glossy, appearing glabrous or rarely obviously ciliate; with a short slender awn c. 0.6 mm long, rarely to 3.0 mm long. Male flowers: tepals 5, brown to hyaline, glabrous, 2.5–3.0 mm long; outer tepals keeled; inner tepals flat; stamens 3; filaments c. 1.2 mm long; anthers 1.5–1.7 mm long; pistillode minute. Female flowers: tepals 5, similar to males, outer tepals densely pubescent with dense red-brown hairs along the keel, inner tepals flat; staminodes absent; style-branches 2, connate at the base, stigmatic almost to the base. Capsule globose, 2.0–2.2 mm long. Seed conical, c. 1 mm long, brown to black, with convex cells forming low papillae in irregular longitudinal lines. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 1 layer of elongated peg cells, interrupted by greatly enlarged epidermal cells that extend outwards forming longitudinal ridges overarching the stomates and that mostly extend inwards to (and often interrupt) the parenchyma sheath over sclerenchyma girders opposite the outer vascular bundles, pillar and protective cells absent, central cavity present.
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