Herb, perennial, dioecious, caespitose, plants few-stemmed; base with a pale brown woolly pubescence partly covered by glabrous cataphylls. Cataphylls similar to sheath but shorter, pale brown, extending 0.5–1 cm up the culm, truncate with a short broad deltoid lamina. Culms erect, straight, slender, terete to slightly compressed, simple, 20–60 cm long, 0.8–1.0 mm diam., striate, glabrous, with 4–6 internodes below the inflorescence, the lowest internode short (1–2 cm). Sheaths 7–12 mm long, green, striate, closely appressed, truncate; ligule a narrow membranous ridge pilose with dense long hairs; lamina terete, erect or slightly curved, linear, acute, 2–4 (–7) mm long. Inflorescence with 1–6 filiform branches arising at each upper culm node; branches to 3.5 cm long but often much shorter, often with several internodes, occasionally branched, with a single terminal spikelet or with both axillary and terminal spikelets. Spikelets globose to ovoid; glumes lanceolate-ovate, scarious, dull tan-brown, acute, shortly ciliate, 2.0–2.5 mm long; sometimes with a small mucro. Male spikelets 3.5–5 mm long, 2–3 mm wide, with 1–4 sterile lower glumes and 6–25 fertile upper glumes. Female spikelets 2–4.5 mm long, 2–3 mm wide; 1-or 2-flowered, with up to 4 sterile lower glumes. Male flowers: tepals 6, linear-lanceolate, acute, glossy, tan-brown, hyaline; 2 outer tepals keeled, with a few hairs along keel; inner tepals flat, slightly shorter, 1.8–2.3 mm long, glabrous; stamens 3; filaments c. 2.0 mm long; anthers c. 1 mm long, exserted; pistillode minute or absent. Female flowers: tepals 6, similar to males; staminodes 3; styles 2, very shortly connate. Capsule compressed, almost circular in outline, 1.5–2 mm long, brown, smooth, glossy. Seeds ellipsoid, c. 1.2 mm long, dark brown, glossy, with longitudinal lines of flat, rhombic cells which are mostly elongated oblique to the long axis of the seed. Culm anatomy: chlorenchyma of 3 or 4 layers of short peg cells, interrupted opposite some outer vascular bundles by sclerenchyma girders extending from parenchyma sheath to epidermis; central cavity present.
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