Herb, dioecious, rhizomatous perennial. Rhizomes horizontal or ascending or erect, 4–8 mm diam., with caducous, imbricate, scarious, tan scales covering a dense light brown woolly pubescence. Culms crowded on the rhizome, terete, stout, c. 1–1.5 (–2) m long, (1.5–) 2–2.5 mm diam., grey-green, finely striate, glabrous, unbranched or rarely sparsely branched; internodes to c. 12 cm long. Sheaths pale brown, 0.8–1.5 cm long, striate, glabrous; the apical margin 1–3 mm wide, scarious, hyaline becoming brown, caducous; apex blunt with a 2–3 mm lamina extending through the scarious margin; both the lamina and apical margin may disappear through weathering. Inflorescence 5–25 cm long; male spikelets on tomentose pedicels; female spikelets crowded in fascicles along short side branches. Male spikelets ovoid, chestnut-coloured, 4–6 mm long, 2–5 mm diam.; spathes 2.5–3.0 mm long, glabrous, shorter than spikelets; glumes c. 13–26, all fertile, glabrous, 2.7–3.3 mm long. Female glumes narrow-elliptic, twice length of flower, 2.0–2.5 mm long, glabrous; floral bract slightly longer than tepals, c. 1.3 mm long, glabrous. Male flowers: tepals 5 or 6, narrow-lanceolate, acute, brown to hyaline, glabrous; outer tepals keeled, 1.4–1.7 mm long, inner tepals slightly shorter, concave; stamens 3; filaments 1.6–2.0 mm long; anthers 0.5–1.2 mm long, apiculate, not exerted. Female flowers: tepals 6, narrow-lanceolate to linear, acute to acuminate, brown to hyaline, glabrous or shortly ciliate; outer tepals keeled, 1–1.3 mm long, inner tepals concave with a prominent abaxial midrib; styles 3, free or shortly connate at the base, style base persistent; staminodes not observed. Nut 0.7–2.0 mm long, 0.3–1.0 mm wide, glabrous, brown, glossy; fruit falling with attached tepals, bract and glume. Seed c. 0.5 mm long, c. 0.2 mm wide, light brown, smooth, with a surface pattern of subangular cells. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 2–4 layers of short cells, interrupted by pillar cells and by sclerenchyma ridges opposite the outer vascular bundles that extend from the sclerenchyma sheath part-way through the chlorenchyma; central cavity present or absent; with an inner sclerenchyma layer one cell thick separating the outer and inner ground tissue.
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