Perennial plants 10–30 cm high; rootbase thickened and compactly fibrous from persistent leaf sheaths. Culms simple, grooved on one side, glabrous; nodes glabrous. Leaves chiefly basal; sheaths shorter than upper culm internodes, glabrous or hirsute; blade to 14.5 cm long, to 3.3 mm wide, glabrous or pilose with simple hairs, with margins and nerves usually scabrous-tuberculate. Panicles open, 2.5–6 cm long, 2.5–4 cm wide, with sparse slightly swollen yellowish glands on rachis, branches and pedicels, with thickened glabrous pulvini. Glumes 1.6–2 mm long, muticous or mucronate, 3–5-nerved, smooth, glabrous. Florets exceeding glumes by 1–2 mm; lemma and palea appressed, becoming divergent at anthesis. Lemma 2.5–3.3 mm long, acute or acuminate, muticous, thinly membranous, 7-nerved (ribbed), without grooves, sparsely hairy at base and usually on lower c. half. Palea entire or splitting down from apex, muticous, sparsely hairy near the base. Caryopsis not seen.
Grows in skeletal sand over massive pavements of sandstone and basalt,or amongst granite boulders, often in shallow pools or seepage.
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