Compactly tufted perennials, eglandular, not aromatic, often purple near base; cataphylls hardened, glabrous, glossy. Culms often geniculate, 60–90 cm high. Leaves mostly glabrous; ligule 0.1–0.3 mm long; blade convolute, straight, to 4 mm wide when flattened. Panicles open or contracted, 14–30 cm long, 6–15 cm wide; branches without spikelets in lower quarter. Spikelets pedicellate, linear or oblong, 4–9 mm long, 1–1.8 mm wide; rachilla slightly flexuose, winged, often scaberulous; florets 9–21, closely overlapping. Glumes ±equal, c. 1.5 mm long, scabrous on keel towards apex. Lemma lanceolate to ovate-elliptic, 1.5–2 mm long, acute to obtuse, membranous, 3-nerved. Palea: body narrowly elliptic, 2/3–3/4 length of lemma; keels scabrous-ciliolate except near base; flaps distinctly narrower than body. Stamens 2; anthers 0.5 mm long. Grain laterally compressed, ovoid to oblong, 0.6–1 mm long, brown.
Growsin sandy, often low-lying, soil in disturbed sites near forest tracks, as aweed of introduction plots and pasture trials, and in wallum flats.
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