Erect, tufted grass, 25–70 cm high; culms often branched; nodes glabrous. Leaves scattered along culm; margin smooth; lamina 3–11 cm long, 2.5–7 mm wide; sheath rounded, ± glabrous. Racemes 2, ± appressed, sometimes appearing as a single raceme, 1.5–5 cm long, bristly; pedicels and rachis long-hairy; spikelets paired, appressed. Sessile spikelets 4.5 mm long, distinctly awned. Glumes coriaceous at base; lower glume with 2 membranous wings in apical half, bidentate; upper glume with a winged keel towards apex and an awn c. 6 mm long. Florets with hyaline lemma and coriaceous palea c. 3.5 mm long; awn of upper lemma c. 15 mm long, twisted at base.
Occurs sporadically on the northern and western coasts on exposed limestone pinnacles immediately behind the sea cliffs, in pockets of coralline sand, in front of the dense stands of Pandanus nativitatis and Scaevola taccada.
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