Herb, evergreen, dioecious, perennial, forming diffuse patches of widely separated stems arising singly or several together. Rhizomes long slender horizontal or ascending, up to at least 30 cm long, 1.2–2.5 mm diam., with internodes 1–3 cm long. Stems 15–50 cm tall, 0.8–1.5 mm diam.; internodes 1.5–7 cm long; young culms pink, old culms grey-green, glaucous, rigid and wiry, branched from near base, with a single lateral branch per node. Sheaths erect, oblong-spathulate, broadest toward the apex, slightly lax, scarious, red-brown, 0.7–1.5 cm long, truncate or auriculate; lamina 0.5–3 mm long. Inflorescence branches arising singly at upper nodes; flowers in clusters of 2–4 at the apex of inflorescence branches. Spathes subtending flower clusters similar to sheaths but smaller, 2–5 mm long, broad-deltoid, hyaline. Male and female flowers similar, outer tepals 1.6–2.0 mm long; inner tepals 2.0–2.6 mm long. Fruit an ovoid small drupe c. 2.7 mm long, with a thin fleshy outer pericarp and a hard inner pericarp, shed with a short fleshy pedicel and bracts and perianth attached.
Grows in sand or peaty sand, in heath on the floodplain of watercourses, in a region of moderately low rainfall.
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