Herb, dioecious, caespitose, perennial, forming dense tussocks to 20 cm diam. at base, with tan-brown scarious cataphylls partly covering a dense, brown, woolly pubescence. Culms much-and repeatedly branched, crowded, 30–60 cm long, terete to subterete, 1–2 mm diam. at the base, narrowing to c. 0.3 mm apically, striate, grey-green with a covering of pale, sometimes caducous, scale-like trichomes; branches thinner, numerous, dense, mostly flexuose. Sheaths 5–12 mm long on the main culms, much smaller on the branches, light-to dark-brown, striate, acuminate; lamina narrow, to c. 4 mm long; margin membranous, hyaline, 2–4 mm wide, caducous. Inflorescence: spikelets numerous, solitary, terminal and axillary on lateral branchlets, the branchlets straight to flexuose. Male spikelets ellipsoidal, small, 4–5 (–7) mm long; glumes 4–15, all fertile, ovate, acute to acuminate, 1.7–2.5 mm long (with a short erect mucro c. 0.2 mm long), brown with pale hyaline margin, glabrous. Female spikelets very small, 1.5–2.5 mm long, with 1 (or 2) flower(s), the flower closely enwrapped by 1 (rarely 2) closely appressed glumes with only the styles emerging; glumes ovate, 1.2–2.0 mm long, obtuse, occasionally with an erect, caducous awn to c. 3 mm long, brown, with broad hyaline margin, glabrous; floral bracts 1 or 2, ovate, acute to cuspidate, 1.0–2.5 mm long, brown-hyaline, glabrous to ciliate. Male flowers: tepals 5, brown-hyaline, membranous, glabrous; 2 outer tepals keeled, narrow-lanceolate, 1.0–1.5 mm long with a minute, erect mucro; 3 inner tepals flat or concave, broad-lanceolate, acute, usually slightly shorter; stamens 3, filaments up to 0.8 mm long, anthers 0.9–1.2 mm long. Female flowers: tepals 6, lanceolate to narrow-lanceolate, acute to cuspidate, 1–2 mm long, concave to weakly-keeled, brown-hyaline, fimbriate; inner tepals more densely fimbriate; style 3-branched, the basal half connate and persistent on the nut, the upper half free and wholly stigmatic. Nut narrow-pyriform, c. 1.5 mm long, green. Seed ellipsoid, c. 1 mm long. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma interrupted by groups of pillar cells that extend from the parenchyma sheath to the epidermis.
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