Herb, dioecious, rhizomatous, perennial, forming diffuse patches to 30 cm across. Rhizome horizontal, stout, 6–9 mm diam.; scales tough, shiny, tan-brown, partly covering a pale brown pubescence. Culms spaced 1–2 cm apart, erect, terete, smooth to striate, 40–60 cm long, 1.5–2.5 mm diam., basal internode densely pubescent. Sheaths glabrous when mature, 15–25 mm long, cuspidate; lamina 2–4 mm long, rarely longer. Inflorescence: male spikelets numerous, pedicellate; female spikelets solitary and terminal on branches, or few at the distal nodes of erect branches. Male spikelets ovoid, 4–8 mm long; glumes 8–23, all fertile or up to 4 sterile lower glumes, ovate, acute, 2.5–3.7 mm long with a short erect mucro to c. 0.5 mm long, concave, glabrous, tan-brown, the upper half often paler with a narrow hyaline margin. Female spikelets cylindrical, 8.5–12 mm long; glumes 4–6, lanceolate, acute, 5–7 mm long, tapering to a recurved tip, initially red-brown, becoming greyish with age; abaxial surface of lowest glumes pubescent. Male flowers: tepals 5 or 6, outer tepals usually longer than inner, ovate; outer tepals apex truncate or acuminate, 1.3–1.8 mm long; third tepal equalling lateral tepals, concave, obtuse; inner tepals concave, obtuse to acute, 0.8–1.4 mm long; anthers c. 0.8 mm long. Female flowers: flower stalk with a single bract, rarely a second minute bract; 1.5–2.8 mm long; tepals 3.0–3.5 mm long; style 3-branched. Fruit a nut with woody pericarp, ovoid-cylindrical, rugose, brown, c. 3 mm long, c. 2.5 mm diam., the apex tipped with the persistent style-base, shed with short stalk and perianth. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 2–4 layers of short cells, interrupted by pillar cells and partial sclerenchyma ridges opposite the outer vascular bundles.
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