Herb, dioecious, rhizomatous, perennial, forming patches of loose turf to 30 cm across; sand-binding roots present. Rhizome horizontal, up to c. 20 (–35) cm long, 1.5–2 mm diam.; scales scarious, glabrous, overlapping, pale-to straw-coloured, covering a thin, axillary, pale pubescence. Cataphylls 0.5–2.5 cm long, pale, closely appressed. Culms crowded or spaced to c. 1 cm apart, erect or flexuose, terete, simple or rarely with short branches, 5–25 cm long, 0.5–1.5 mm diam., smooth to minutely tuberculate, pale-to yellowish-green; internodes 2–7, to 8 cm long; lowest internode slender, erect, tomentose when young; upper internodes stouter, glabrous, often flexuose. Sheaths lax, 0.6–1.5 cm long, oblong to obcuneate, truncate, scarious, purplish to pale-brown or green when young, weathering to a dull grey; apical margin tomentose but becoming weathered; lamina slender, 2–10 mm long, rarely longer; auricles well-developed, slightly membranous, weathering away. Spikelets usually solitary, sessile on culm. Male spikelets narrow-cylindrical, 5–9 mm long; glumes 6–14, all fertile or the lowest glume sterile, ovate, acuminate to aristate, 2.5–4.0 mm long; mucro erect, black, c. 1 mm long. Female spikelets narrow-cylindrical, 6–10 mm long; glumes 8–11, uppermost 4–7 fertile, usually only 1 or 2 reaching maturity; glumes rigid, ovate, obtuse to truncate, 3–5.5 mm long; mucro erect, to 2 mm long; apex and abaxial surface pubescent, weathering with age. Male flowers: tepals 5 or 6, narrow-lanceolate to lanceolate, hyaline, acute; outer tepals 2.8–4 mm long; anthers exserted, 1.3–1.5 mm long. Female flowers: tepals 5 or 6, inner tepals ovate, 2.3–3.5 mm long; ovary unilocular, style 1, mostly stigmatic. Nut hemispherical, convex and with an indistinct ridge abaxially but almost flat adaxially, 1.5–2 mm long, c. 1 mm wide, brown, on a stipe c. 0.8 mm long. Seed ovoid, orange-brown, glossy, c. 1.7 mm long. 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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