Herb, dioecious, caespitose, perennial; sand-binding roots present; plants all female, setting seed apomictically (parthenogenetic); male plants not known. Cataphylls reddish brown, to 15 mm long. Culms unbranched but with clusters of c. 20 branchlets at most nodes, erect, terete, minutely tuberculate, glabrous or densely pubescent with short hairs, to 20 cm high or rarely taller, 0.7–1.2 mm diam.; internodes 6–10, often partly exposed and not hidden by branchlets; branchlets slender, straight to flexuose or tightly recurved, to 1.5 cm long, laterally flattened and rectangular or narrow deltoid in cross section. Sheaths 8–13 mm long, glabrous or sparsely pilose, often reflexed; lamina erect, c. 5 mm long. Female spikelets single and terminal on branchlets, sometimes appearing sessile on the culms at flowering stage but branchlets elongating by fruiting stage, ellipsoid, c. 5.0 mm long, 1-flowered; glumes 3–6, broad-ovate, acute, 1.5–4.3 mm long, brown, abaxial surface glabrous or partially pilose, mucro to 0.6 mm long, the uppermost glume imbricate and persistent around the fruit at dehiscence forming a striated cone-like cap or coat. Female flowers lacking tepals; ovary unilocular, style c. 3 mm long, red, mostly stigmatic. Nut narrow-ellipsoid, c. 2.0 mm long, dark brown with pale lateral lines at the carpel margins, shed closely enwrapped by the rigid uppermost glume. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma continuous.
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