Herb, dioecious, caespitose, perennial, forming large dense tussocks to 30 cm across; base with pale brown cataphylls and pale brown woolly pubescence. Culms 120–140 cm long, stout, terete, 2.5–4.5 (–6) mm diam. near base, finely striate, grey-green. Sheaths 11–25 mm long, tan to grey-brown, apex mucronate; lamina narrow, blunt, 6–8 mm long, persistent; apical margin 2.5–5.5 mm wide, membranous, weathering away. Inflorescence large, much-branched, spikelets very numerous; males semi-erect or pendulous on fine branchlets; females with a cluster of branches to c. 50 cm long bearing spikelets crowded on very short, 2–3 mm long lateral final branches. Male spikelets ovoid to cylindrical, 4.5–11 mm long; glumes 12–38, all fertile or several lower glumes sterile or with abortive flowers, ovate, acuminate to aristate, 1.7–2.7 mm long (with a short awn to 0.4 mm long), red-brown, slightly glossy, glabrous, the apical one-third hyaline. Female spikelets 2–3 mm long; glumes lanceolate to ovate, acuminate, 0.8–1.5 mm long, equal in length to tepals, glabrous. Male flowers: tepals 5 (or 6), membranous, acute, 0.9–1.5 mm long; outer tepals keeled, lanceolate, brown-pigmented, cuspidate; inner tepals flatter and broader, lanceolate to broad-ovate, hyaline or pigmented, either slightly shorter or slightly longer; stamens 3, filaments c. 0.3 mm long, anthers c. 0.6–0.9 mm long. Female flowers: base with pale hairs; bracts ovate, shorter than tepals, toward the apex hyaline and pigmented only along the keel; tepals 6, red-brown, flat or slightly keeled, linear-lanceolate, acute, 1–1.4 mm long, tepals equal or inner slightly shorter, abaxial surface papillate; margin shortly ciliate; style 3-branched, the 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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