Herb, dioecious, rhizomatous, perennial, forming diffuse patches to 30 cm across. Rhizomes woody, 3–5 mm diam., tawny yellow-brown and slightly glossy, glabrous, mostly covered by scarious scales 3–5 mm long. Culms ascending at the base, unbranched, 45–70 cm long, terete, 1–2 mm diam., smooth to minutely striate, light-to grey-green or purplish. Sheaths few, mostly 5–8, closely appressed to the culm, acute, 1–1.7 cm long, minutely-striate, brown to grey-black; lamina to 7 mm long, weathering away; apical margin hyaline, c. 4 mm wide, weathering away. Male inflorescence up to c. 15 cm long, the spikelets erect to drooping on filiform pedicels. Female inflorescence narrow, interrupted, up to c. 10 cm long; culms with 10–30 (–70) spikelets. Male spikelets ovoid, 4.5–5.5 mm long; glumes 10–16, ovate, acute to cuspidate, 2–2.5 mm long (the lowest few glumes shorter and empty), with a short erect awn c. 1 mm long, dark brown, glabrous, with a clearly defined pale hyaline margin 0.3–0.5 mm wide. Female spikelets ellipsoid, 4–8 mm long; glumes 8–20, all fertile or several basal ones empty, glabrous, when young with the lower part brown with a distinct hyaline margin, becoming hyaline and grey with age, lanceolate, aristate, 2.5–3.5 mm long, with an erect to recurved awn to c. 1.5 mm long. Male flowers: tepals 6, brown-hyaline, membranous, glabrous; 2 outer tepals keeled, oblanceolate, cuspidate, 1.0–1.6 mm long, with a very short, erect awn; inner tepals flat, broad-lanceolate, cuspidate, slightly shorter; stamens 3, filaments very short, anthers 0.6–0.8 mm long. Female flowers with a tuft of short, pale hairs at the base; bracts 2, unequal, resembling tepals but outer bract shorter; tepals 6, all ± equal, linear, acute to obtuse, 0.7–1.4 mm long, slightly keeled, brown or hyaline, the upper half usually prominently ciliate; style 3-branched, c. 3 mm long, the base shortly connate and persistent on the nut, the upper half stigmatic. Nut narrow-ellipsoid, c. 1 mm long, yellow-brown, smooth. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma interrupted by groups of pillar cells that extend from the parenchyma sheath to the epidermis.
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