Perennial, with short, nodose or corm-like rhizome. Stems slender, retrorsely hispid-scabrid on the angles to almost smooth, 20-60 cm by 1-1½ mm. Leaves narrowly linear, glabrous, more or less scabrid on the margins, 2-3 mm wide; sheaths narrow, not winged, often more or less pubescent; contraligule absent (mouth of the sheaths truncate or almost so, villous). Inflorescence narrow, consisting of 2-4 distant to approximate, small clusters, 3-12 cm long; peduncles single or binate at the nodes; primary bracts erect, as long as or overtopping the inflorescence, the upper ones gradually shorter; secondary bracts inconspicuous. Spikelets bisexual and ♂ (see note), 4-6 mm long; ♂ spikelets several-flowered; stamens 3; anthers linear, 2-2½ mm long; bisexual spikelets with several ♂ flowers; glumes ovate-lanceolate, acute or cuspidate, ferrugineous with green keel. Disk 3-lobed, whitish; lobes membranous, broad, truncate, undulate. Nut small, much shorter than the glumes, fragile, globular to ovoid-ellipsoid, obtusely or obscurely trigonous, apiculate (the short beak conical, brown or blackish), more or less granular-tuberculate, at first pubescent, finally glabrescent, white, 2-3 by 1⅔ mm.
Open savannah land, rocky slopes, Euca lyptus forests, at low altitude.
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