Tussock-forming perennials, rhizomatous; rootbase bulbous or knotty, woolly-hairy. Culms 45–50 cm high, wiry. Leaves: lower sheaths overlapping; sheath much wider than blade and glabrous at orifice; ligule c. 0.5 mm long; blade becoming rolled, pungent. Panicles loosely spiciform, 8–15 cm long, 1–2 (–4) cm wide. Spikelets shortly pedicellate or subsessile, 8–46 mm long, 1.2–1.6 mm wide, biconvex or terete, linear or narrowed upwards; rachilla straight; florets 17–94, closely overlapping. Glumes obliquely attached, ±equal or the upper larger, ovate, 1.3–1.0 mm long, membranous with hyaline margins. Lemma ovate, 1.7–2 mm long, membranous with hyaline margins, thickly 3-nerved, prickly-tuberculate near apex. Palea: body spathulate-obovate; keels shorter than body and dividing apex into 3 teeth, scaberulous or ciliolate towards apex. Anthers 0.7–1 mm long, yellow or purple. Grain strongly dorsally compressed, 0.6–0.8 mm long, 0.2–0.3 mm thick.
Grows in red or red-brown, sometimes lateritic loams,clays and sands, in periodically inundated areas, on sand dunes and limestonerises.
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