Herb, dioecious, perennial, mostly glabrous, rhizomatous, forming large diffuse patches or tussocks to > 1 m across. Cluster-roots present. Rhizomes 3–8 mm diam., covered by scarious scales. Cataphylls several, ovate with a linear lamina, 3–15 (–30) mm long. Culms erect or forming tangled masses, terete, simple or branched, 15–80 cm long, 0.5–1.0 mm diam. Sheaths green or pale brown, 5–15 mm long, weathering away; lamina often caducous, terete or flat, usually reflexed, 1–12 (–27) mm long, the longer laminae at the lower nodes. Inflorescence with sessile flowers crowded in clusters which are either distant along the inflorescence axis or, more rarely, few or solitary at the apex of the culm, each cluster in the axil of a broad, loose spathe 4–7 mm long; floral bracts 2, broad-lanceolate, 2.5–3.5 mm long, weakly keeled, brown-hyaline, narrow-cuspidate. Male flowers: tepals rigid, lanceolate, acute, red-brown, largely hyaline, ± equal in length, 2.0–3.5 mm long; filaments 1.5–2.0 mm long; anthers exserted, c. 1.3 mm long. Female flowers: tepals similar to males; styles 3, free, arising from outer corners of ovary summit. Capsule globose, c. 1 mm diam. Seed ovoid, c. 0.8 mm long, with a thin, white surface layer, colliculate; colliculae small, circular, overlain by a network of narrow ridges. Culm anatomy: epidermal cells with sinuous walls and globular silica bodies, transverse (horizontal) lines of stomates visible on culm surface, chlorenchyma of horizontal plates of palisade-like cells (2 layers of short cells), pillar cells absent, substomatal cavities lined by protective cells, central cavity angular, (2-or) 3-angled.
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