Perennial tufted herb 0.1–0.45 (–70) m high; plants clonal, forming dense tussocks 0.1–0.3 m across; rhizome thin, woody, short, branched, 1–2 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, often arcuate, with 1 (2) nodes or not noded, terete, not or scarcely grooved, 0.5–1.2 mm diam., smooth, glabrous, green to yellow-green, base somewhat tapering. Leaves mostly basal, numerous, and sometimes 1 or 2 cauline; phyllotaxy loosely spirotristichous; sheath 11–17 mm long, 0.7–1.5 mm wide, slightly broader than the leaf lamina, margins glabrous, straw-coloured to dark red-brown, dull, upper margin membranous, oblique, glabrous, ligule absent; cauline sheath tight around culm; pseudopetiole obscure or absent; basal leaves often with a much reduced lamina, not exceeding the culms, lamina dorsiventral, 0.5–6 (–7) cm long, 0.3–0.7 mm wide; bases not differentiated, not dividing; lamina ± linear, channelled, ± flexuous, old leaf tips not curling, finely multi-striate, margins glabrous or with a few minute scabrosities, otherwise glabrous, brown, concolorous, weakly keeled along midvein, margins not recurved, apex long-attenuate, setaceous; lowest leaves reduced to a sheath, lacking a lamina, pale to reddish brown. Inflorescence contracted, panicle-like, narrow, ± obloid, somewhat flexuous, with 0 or 1 (2) nodes, 0.8–1.5 cm long, 5–8 mm wide, usually not interrupted, axis green or yellow-green, not glaucous; bracts reduced leaf-like, not exceeding the spikelet clusters, sheaths open, not enveloping the higher bracts, gradually reducing along the inflorescence, basal bract somewhat shorter than inflorescence, to 12 mm long; branch(es) erect, margins scabrous, with solitary or 2 or 3 spikelets in a terminal cluster (rarely with a second distant cluster), spikelet(s) on short, terete, glabrous peduncles 1–3 mm long, arising in each bract axil; spikelet prophyll present, sheath 3–4.5 mm long, brown, with 3 distinct veins, partially enclosing the spikelet, with a slender lamina 0.6–1.0 mm long, brown. Spikelets brown, lanceolate, 4–6 mm long, terete, with 5 or 6 glumes, only topmost 2 or 3 fertile, the lower 1 or 2 flowers male, sterile or fertile, the upper flower bisexual, fertile, no reduced glume above the florets; glumes subdistichous, basal glume 2.5–3.5 mm long, fertile glumes 2.9–4.0 mm long, 1.5–2.8 mm wide, membranous, very pale red-brown to very dark red-brown (apex often darker than body), sparsely scabrous on the keel, lamina glabrous, ovate-lanceolate, acute to acuminate, with a mucro to 0.5 mm long, keel distinct; rachilla compact and not sinuous in fruiting spikelets. Perianth segments 6, whitish, minute, 0.2–0.8 mm long, expanded below, tapering to a fine point, glabrous, sometimes persistent but usually falling with nutlet. Stamens 3; anther connective 2.3–3.8 mm long, subulate; anthers cream, 1.4–1.6 mm long, with a glabrous apical appendage 0.15–0.2 mm long. Style trifid, base 0.5–1.2 mm long, glabrous, slender above, not or scarcely dilated below, branches 1.5–2.0 mm long, hispidulous. Nutlet shortly stipitate, stipe c. 0.5 mm long, somewhat constricted, obovoid to obpyriform or broad-ellipsoid, obscurely trigonous, dull, mid-brown to dark brown, 2.1–2.5 mm long including the style base, 1.2–1.5 mm wide, faces smooth, puberulous especially near apex, epidermal cells square–hexagonal, inconspicuous, with three fine white ribs, style base only slightly enlarged, thick, persistent, very shortly conical; embryo not examined. Photosynthetic pathway inferred from anatomy to be C3 (Takeda et al. 1985; Willis s.n., 1 Oct. 1959; Briggs 3961; Bruhl & Wilson 2007).
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