Herb, dioecious, caespitose, perennial; sand-binding roots present. Cataphylls 0.5–2 cm long, glossy dark-to red-brown. Culms few or many, crowded on a compact base, erect or spreading, terete, 25–50 cm long, rarely shorter, 0.8–2.0 mm diam., smooth to substriate, pale-to yellowish-green; internodes numerous, to c. 8 cm long; usually branched; branches slender, flexuose or straight; young culms and branches villous. Sheaths lax, 0.5–2.5 cm long, brown to straw-coloured, oblong to oblanceolate; apex obtuse or truncate; lamina persistent, to c. 1 cm long. Spikelets solitary or mostly in clusters of up to 7 at nodes on the culms and branches. Male spikelets narrow-ovoid, 4–9 mm long; glumes c. 30, lower 2–5 (rarely more) glumes sterile; glumes ovate, acute to acuminate, 1.7–3 mm long, brown to dark brown, usually ciliate with white hairs; the abaxial surface often sparsely pubescent; mucro erect or reflexed, black, 1–2.5 mm long. Female spikelets narrow-ovoid, 7–8 mm long; glumes 4–8; lower 2 or 3 sterile, upper 1 or 2 fertile, and 1 or 2 reduced uppermost glumes sterile; glumes narrow-ovate, 3–6 mm long, red-to dark-brown, usually ciliate and often the abaxial surface sparsely pubescent; mucro erect or recurved, black, 1.5–2.5 mm long. Male flowers: tepals 5, narrow-lanceolate to lanceolate; outer tepals slightly longer, 1.7–3.0 mm long; filaments c. 2 mm long; anthers exserted, 1.1–1.3 mm long. Female flowers: tepals 5; outer tepals longer, 4–5 mm long; ovary unilocular; style 1, usually recurved, dorsiventrally compressed, stigmatic on the upper surface for most of its length. Nut oblong, the pericarp hard, bony, dark brown; c. 3.5 mm long; the lower half to two-thirds striate and enclosing the seed; the upper part not striate, forming a solid blunt cap. Nut ovoid-oblong, c. 1.6 mm long, pale orange-brown, glossy. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma continuous, of a single layer of peg cells; vessels scattered in the central ground tissue as well as in an outer ring.
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