Leafy perennial plants 7–50 cm high, mostly glabrous and smooth on culms and foliage; base thickened, pubescent or villous. Culms simple, often purple or pruinose; nodes usually glabrous. Leaves: sheaths shorter than culm internodes; blade to 20 cm long, thin (tightly convolute) or flat and to 2.5 mm wide, with bladder-like vesicles. Panicles rather dense, 4–6 (–10) cm long, 1–2 (–3.5) cm wide. Glumes 3.5–4.5 (–7) mm long, muticous or sometimes with mucro to 0.6 mm long, 9–11-nerved, smooth, glabrous. Florets exceeding glumes by 1.5–2 mm; lemma and palea divergent. Lemma 5–8 mm long, acuminate, with mucro to 2 mm long, membranous to cartilaginous, hyaline on margins, 5–7-nerved, bisulcate or grooved between thickened nerves, hirsute in the lower 1/3–1/2 with hairs almost reaching lemma apex, glabrous and scabrous above. Palea notched or bifid, indumentum similar to lemma. Caryopsis 1.3–2 mm long.
Occurs in seasonally wetareas such as claypans, soaks, depressions, the banks and gravelly beds ofcreeks, the margins of swamps and waterholes, streamlines, calcrete flats, and soilsof sandy clays and loams.
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