Scleria natalensis Boeckeler ex C.B.Clarke

Perennial. Rhizome usually with very short internodes little more than the connective between al-most-contiguous culm bases; scales reddish-brown. Culms 0.5-0.85 m tall with bases 2-3(-4) mm thick; glabrous. Leaves 4-11 mm broad, ensiform, glabrous; sheath with mouth produced into a deltoid-rounded tongue 2-5 mm long with a membranous extension 1 mm long. Inflorescence with terminal panicle 25-65 x 15-20 mm and smaller lateral panicles (1-)2-4 per node at 2-3 nodes exserted 30-230 mm from sheaths. Bracts foliaceous, exceeding their panicles, ensiform. Male spikelets sessile or pedicillate, 4-6 mm long; glumes stramineous with fine reddish striae, glabrescent. Female glumes stramineous with reddish striae, with midrib excurrent into an awn c. 1 mm long; 4-5 mm long. Achene subglobose. Obtusely trigonous, 2.5 x 2 mm, glabrous, reticulate-lacunose to tuberculate-lacunose, brownish-white: hypogynium obtusely trilobed, stramineous.