Perennial. Stems very slender, smooth, leafy throughout, up to 100 cm by 2-3 mm. Leaves very gradually narrowed to the acute tip, glabrous, smooth except for the retrorsely scaberulous tip, 3-4 mm wide; sheaths narrow, not winged, puberulous; contraligule very short, broader than long, rounded, hairy. Inflorescence narrow, 5-15 cm long, consisting of a terminal panicle and about 3 short, lateral ones, the latter single or binate at the nodes, 2-3 cm long, with very short branches; peduncles not or but slightly exserted from the sheaths; lowest primary bract overtopping the inflorescence; secondary bracts subulate. Spikelets bisexual or ♀, and ♂, reddish brown, 3-3½ mm long; ♂ spikelets lanceolate; stamens 3 (or in some flowers 2); anthers c. 2 mm long; nut-bearing spikelets ovoid, with a sterile or ♂ flower besides the terminal ♀ one; glumes ovate, acute, minutely pubescent. Disk cyathiform, thin, 3-lobed, about ½ the length of the nut, yellowish or rufidulous; lobes appressed, ovate-triangular, plicate, irregularly denticulate. Nut small, ovoidconical, obtusely but distinctly trigonous, somewhat acuminate, slightly rugulose, white, hirtellous with ferrugineous hairs, c. 2 by 1½ mm.
Swampy places, shallow water, Melaleuca marsh, among Sphagnum, at low altitude.
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