Herb, dioecious, caespitose, perennial, forming small dense tufts or with numerous culms curving outwards from a narrow crowded base; cluster and sand-binding roots present. Cataphylls numerous, overlapping, glossy, glabrous but covering a pale pubescence, narrow-lanceolate, tan to red-brown, 0.4–2.0 cm long; with an erect terete lamina 1–4 mm long. Culms erect or spreading, slender, simple, subterete, glabrous, except for sheath axils, tuberculate, 12–26 cm long, c. 0.6 mm diam., yellow-green. Sheaths absent. Inflorescence a terminal spikelet; subtending bract 2–5 mm long; mucro 2–4 mm long. Male spikelets ovoid, becoming loose and spreading, 7–12 mm long, 3.0–7.5 mm wide; glumes c. 40, all fertile, oblong to ovate, 3–4 mm long, rigid, red-brown, glabrous, obtuse, caducous; mucro 1.5–2.2 mm long; often with a thin membranous margin. Female spikelets cylindrical becoming ovoid, 5.5–8.0 mm long, 2.0–3.5 mm wide; glumes 11–19, similar to males but lower glumes persistent, the lower 4–10 sterile; oblong to broad-obovate, 2.7–3.5 mm long with a mucro 1.8–2.5 mm long. Flowers: tepals narrow-oblanceolate, obtuse, hyaline, membranous. Male flowers: tepals 3–5, glabrous, 2.9–3.9 mm long; 2 outer tepals keeled, inner tepals flat; stamens 3, filaments 4.0–6.6 mm long; anthers exserted, 1.6–2.0 mm long. Female flowers: tepals 2 or 3, glabrous, c. 2.5 mm long; ovary 1-locular with 1 ovule; style single, unbranched, mostly stigmatic. Nut ellipsoid with an abaxial ridge, 1.4–2.5 mm long, grey-brown, with very little development of a stylar beak. Seed ellipsoid, 1.2–1.4 mm long, 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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