Herb, evergreen, dioecious, perennial, rhizomatous, forming large patches of widely separated culms or groups of several culms. Rhizomes horizontal or ascending; 3–6 mm diam.; scales dark brown, appressed, usually glossy; internodes 0.5–1.3 mm long. Culms straight and erect or sinuous, smooth or minutely rugose, 30–80 cm tall, 1.3–2 mm diam.; internodes 4–8, each 5–18 cm long. Cataphylls ± truncate, 10–18 mm long, ciliate, with an awn 4–8 mm long. Sheaths 6–15 mm long, green or red-brown, lax distally; apex truncate or tapering abruptly, ciliate with hairs 2.5–6 mm long; curved, black awn 6–13 mm long. Inflorescences: males with 6–13 spathes, females with 1–4, each subtending a single flower, or several closely spaced spathes with only the uppermost subtending a flower; lateral branches of male inflorescences condensed or extending beyond culm spathe. Spathes acute, rigid, 4–12 mm long, ciliate with stiff hairs, with a rigid curved awn equalling or exceeding the spathe. Male flowers: tepals 6, hyaline, narrow lanceolate, shortly ciliate at apex, acuminate or acute or blunt, 4–6 mm long; filaments connate in a column 5–7 mm long; anthers 2.5–4 mm long. Female flowers: pedicel c. 1.5 mm long; tepals 6, rigid, 4–6 mm long, shortly ciliate toward apex; outer tepals ovate, with a slender black awn 3–5 mm long; inner tepals narrow deltoid, acute; style 12–15 mm long. Capsule depressed globular, 5–6 mm long, 6–8 mm diam. Seeds c. 2 mm diam., encircled in the median vertical plane by a narrow hyaline flange; the outer layer white, smooth, readily detached; the surface with fine short spines arising from the corners of minute concavities.
Widespread on oligotrophic soils, in deep sands in well drained or seasonally damp woodlands and heaths, often with Banksia shrubs. Commonly in better drained sites than Lyginia imberbis.
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