Perennial tufted herb (0.15–) 0.3–0.45 m high; plants clonal, forming dense to spreading tussocks 0.1–0.6 m across; rhizome thin, woody, short, branched, 0.7–1.2 mm diam., not pseudobulbous; old leaf sheaths covering the rhizome, not breaking apart into fine fibres with age, pale brown, prominently veined; roots sand-binding. Culms slender, rigid, erect, not noded or occasionally with one node just below the inflorescence, compressed, semi-terete or terete, not or finely grooved, 0.4–0.6 mm diam., smooth, glabrous, dull green to yellow-green, base not enlarged. Leaves all basal, 2 or 3; phyllotaxy loosely spirotristichous; sheath 9–44 mm long, 0.8–0.9 mm wide, much broader than the leaf lamina, margins glabrous, reddish brown at the base, straw-coloured or pale brown above, dull, upper margin narrowly membranous, oblique, glabrous, ligule absent; sheath tight around culm; pseudopetiole obscure or absent; leaves usually with a much reduced lamina to 1 mm long, to 0.3 mm wide, but young or regenerating plants sometimes have a lamina to 11 cm long; lamina highly reduced, ± triangular, glabrous, brown, concolorous, apex acute. Inflorescence contracted, panicle-like, narrow, erect, with 2–4 nodes, 1.5–3.2 cm long, 4–7 mm wide, usually somewhat interrupted, axis green or yellow-green, not glaucous, a few short, scabrid hairs on the margins; bracts reduced, not exceeding the spikelet clusters, light or orange-brown, shiny, sheaths open, not enveloping the higher bracts, gradually reducing along the inflorescence, basal bract much shorter than inflorescence, 7–11 mm long; branches erect, with 3–5 spikelets per cluster, arising in each bract axil, spikelet on short, compressed, glabrous peduncles c. 1 mm long; spikelet prophyll present, sheath 1.3–1.5 mm long, brown, with distinct midrib, partially enclosing the spikelet, acuminate, with a slender lamina 0.4–0.9 mm long, brown. Spikelets brown, ± oblate, 2.8–5.1 mm long, 0.9–1.6 mm wide, compressed, with 4 or 5 glumes, only topmost 2 fertile, the lower flower male, fertile, the upper flower bisexual, fertile, no reduced glume above the florets; glumes subdistichous, basal glume 1.4–2.3 mm long, fertile glumes 3.3–4.1 mm long, 0.8–1.1 mm wide, membranous, pale brown, orange-brown or red-brown (apex often darker than body), keel and lamina glabrous, ovate, obtuse to acute, mucro absent, keel distinct; rachilla compact and not or scarcely sinuous in fruiting spikelets. Perianth segments 6, whitish, minute, 0.3–0.9 mm long, subulate, tapering to a fine point. Stamens 3; anther connective 3.0–3.7 mm long, subulate; anthers pale yellow, 2.8–3.5 mm long, with a glabrous apical appendage up to 0.5 mm long. Style trifid, base 1.4–1.7 mm long, glabrous, slender, slightly tapering below, branches 1.3–1.9 mm long, hispidulous. Nutlet shortly stipitate, stipe c. 0.5 mm long, somewhat constricted, ± obovoid, obscurely trigonous, dull, mid-brown, 1.6–1.8 mm long including the stipe, 0.9–1.0 mm diam., faces smooth but shortly hispidulous, epidermal cells ovoid–hexagonal, inconspicuous, with three fine, hispidulous white ribs, style base not enlarged; embryo not examined. Photosynthetic pathway not examined.
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