Perennial tufted herb 0.5–0.8 m high; plants clonal, forming dense tussocks 0.3–0.8 m across; rhizome thin, woody, short, branched, 0.9–1.6 mm diam., non-pseudobulbous; old leaf sheaths covering the rhizome, not breaking apart into fine fibres with age, pale to reddish brown; roots sand-binding. Culms slender, rigid, erect to spreading, usually not noded, but sometimes with 1 or 2 nodes terete, very finely striate, 0.5–1.5 mm diam., smooth, glabrous, bright green to yellow-green, base not enlarged. Leaves mostly basal, numerous, and 1 or 2 cauline; phyllotaxy loosely spirotristichous; sheath 12–100 mm long, 0.7–1.5 mm wide, slightly broader than the leaf lamina, margins with just a few very fine scabrid hairs, otherwise glabrous, straw-coloured to reddish brown, dull, upper margin membranous, oblique, ligule absent; cauline sheath tight around culm; pseudopetiole obscure or absent; basal leaves with a much reduced lamina, much shorter than the culms, lamina dorsiventral, 3–5 mm long, 0.2–0.4 mm wide; bases pale brown-membranous, not dividing; lamina ± linear, not channelled, ± flexuous, old leaf tips not curling, finely multi-striate, margins sometimes very finely scabrid, otherwise glabrous, green, concolorous, weakly keeled along midvein, margins not recurved, apex attenuate; lowest leaves reduced to a sheath, lacking a lamina, pale to reddish brown. Inflorescence much-contracted, panicle-like, narrow-oblate to lanceolate, not flexuous, with 2–4-nodes, 1.5–2.2 cm long, 4–6 mm wide, not interrupted, axis ± fully concealed, green or yellow-green, not glaucous; bracts bract-like, usually shortly exceeding the spikelet clusters, sheaths open, partially enveloping the higher bracts, gradually reducing along the inflorescence, basal bract much shorter than inflorescence, 8–12 mm long; basal branchlet 10–15 mm long, branches erect, with solitary or 2 spikelets per branchlet, spikelet(s) ± sessile or on short, compressed, glabrous peduncles to 0.5 mm long, arising in each bract axil; spikelet prophyll present, sheath 3.1–4.6 mm long, translucent to pale brown or with dark reddish flecks, with distinct midvein, partially enclosing the spikelet, with a slender lamina 0.9–1.5 mm long, translucent to pale brown. Spikelets translucent to pale brown or with dark reddish flecks, lanceolate, 5.5–6.8 mm long, 1.1–1.7 mm wide, somewhat compressed, with 5 or 6 persistent glumes, only topmost 2 fertile, the lower flower male fertile, the upper flower bisexual, fertile, no reduced glume above the florets; glumes distichous, basal glume 3.6–4.5 mm long, fertile glumes 4.7–5.8 mm long, 0.9–1.3 mm wide, membranous, translucent to pale brown or with dark reddish flecks, very finely ciliate on the keel and margins, the hairs short and spreading, face glabrous, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, with a mucro 0.6–1.2 mm long, keel distinct; rachilla compact and not sinuous in fruiting spikelets. Perianth segments 6, whitish, 0.5–1.2 mm long, ± filiform but dilated at the very base, tapering to a fine point with a few minute hairs at the apex. Stamens 3, anther connective 3.1–4.6 mm long, subulate; anthers yellow, 2.7–3.4 mm long, with a glabrous apical appendage 0.4–0.5 mm long. Style trifid, base 3.0–3.5 mm long, glabrous, slender above, not or scarcely dilated below, branches 2.4–2.8 mm long, hispidulous. Nutlet shortly stipitate, stipe c. 0.4 mm long, somewhat constricted, obovoid to obpyriform, obscurely trigonous, dull, mid-brown, 1.9–2.2 mm long including the stipe and style base, 0.8–1.0 mm diam., faces smooth, very minutely puberulous especially near apex, epidermal cells square–hexagonal, inconspicuous, with three fine white ribs, style base not enlarged, cap-like; embryo not examined. Photosynthetic pathway not examined.
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