Herb, dioecious, caespitose, perennial, forming large and very dense many-stemmed plants, sometimes dying in the centre and forming large rings 1.3–3 m across; cluster and sand-binding roots present. Culms erect, terete, pubescent with long villous hairs, tuberculate, substriate, to 50 cm long, 0.5–2.0 mm diam.; internodes numerous; branchlets numerous, flexuose, slender, 6–14 per node, to c. 14 cm long. Sheaths somewhat spreading, 6–15 mm long, pale brown; apex truncate; lamina 1.5–6.0 mm long, erect or reflexed. Inflorescences: male spikelets sessile, axillary on culms and branchlets, 1–6 spikelets per axil; female spikelets single, terminal on branchlets or sessile and axillary on culms. Male spikelets: ovoid, 4–5 mm long; subtending bract c. ½ length of spikelet; mucro c. 2 mm long; glumes 11–17, ovate, acute, 1.3–2.9 mm long, light brown, scarious, hyaline; mucro to 1.1 mm long. Female spikelets: ellipsoid, 4.5–7.0 mm long; subtending bract c. ⅓ as long to longer than spikelet; mucro 1.3–4.0 mm long; glumes c. 4, broad-ovate, acute, 2.5–5.2 mm long, brown, abaxial surface partially villous with long hairs; mucro to 1.7 mm long; innermost glume more rigid and longer than other glumes, striate, with a stout conical awn. Male flowers: tepals 5, scarious, hyaline, lanceolate-oblanceolate, acute, ± equal in length, 2–3 mm long; anthers 1.0–1.3 mm long. Female flowers: tepals probably absent; style slender. Fruit a small nut, c. 3 mm long, narrow-ovoid, dark brown with 2 pale lateral lines at the carpel margins, shed enwrapped by the uppermost glume, which is rigid and striate. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma continuous, of a single layer of peg cells.
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