Herb, dioecious, caespitose, perennial, forming large dense tussocks to 30 (–50) cm across at base; with pale brown cataphylls and base with a pale brown woolly pubescence. Culms tough and wiry, terete, 50–160 cm long, 2–5 mm diam. near the base, often arching outwards so that the tussock extends > 1 m across, inconspicuously striate, grey-green; internodes 5–12 cm long. Sheaths 15–25 mm long, striate, tan to grey-brown, apical membranous margin 1.5–5 mm wide, often weathering away. Inflorescence much-branched; male spikelets on fine branchlets, mostly clustered at the upper nodes; female spikelets crowded on final branches in the upper 5–10 cm of the inflorescence. Male spikelets ovoid to cylindrical, 4–8 mm long; glumes 12–18, all fertile, ovate, acuminate to aristate, 2–3 mm long (with a short awn to 0.4 mm long), glossy tan-brown, glabrous, mostly with a broad hyaline margin. Female spikelets 2–5 mm long; glumes lanceolate, acuminate, 1–1.5 mm long, equal in length to flowers, glabrous. Male flowers: tepals 5 or 6, membranous, acute, 0.9–1.6 mm long; outer tepals keeled, linear-lanceolate, pigmented only along keel; inner tepals flatter and broader, lanceolate to broad-ovate, longer than outer tepals; stamens 3, filaments c. 0.3 mm long, anthers c. 0.8–1.2 mm long. Female flowers: base with pale hairs; floral bracts nearly as long as tepals, acute to acuminate, apical margin ciliate; tepals 6, red-brown, linear-lanceolate, flat or slightly keeled, acute, 1.2–1.5 mm long; surface papillate; margins ciliate to densely tomentose; inner tepals slightly longer; style 3-branched, branches wholly stigmatic, base persistent on the nut. Nut narrow ovoid-trigonous, 1–1.3 mm long, yellow-brown. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma interrupted by groups of pillar cells that extend from the parenchyma sheath to the epidermis.
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