Plants forming hummocks, 0.4–1 m high, 0.75 m wide, stoloniferous with compact clusters of tillers, not or scarcely resinous. Culms simple or fastigiately branched, purple-black when young. Leaves: sheath glabrous; orifice (long-)bearded with hairs 2.5–8 mm long; blade stiffly straight or curved, 12–40 cm long, 0.5–0.8 mm wide, closely nerved below, sparsely scabrid on margins. Panicles linear, ±dense, contracted, 9–20 cm long, 1–2 cm wide; axis angular; branches to 6.5 cm long, sometimes further divided. Spikelets 4.5–8.5 mm long (excluding awns); pedicel 1.5–18 mm long; florets 3–5, with basal one fertile and others reduced to slender stiff scabrous bristles 3–7 mm long clustered at top of rachilla; rachilla internodes 1–1.5 mm long. Glumes ±equal or lower one longer, lanceolate, 4.5–7.5 (–8.5) mm long, entire and acuminate or minutely 2-lobed with or without mucro from sinus, thinly membranous to scarious with hyaline margins, carinate or rounded on back, 3 (–5)-nerved, glabrous. Callus 0.3 mm long, blunt or acute, bearded. Basal lemma: body 1.8–2.8 mm long including callus, coriaceous to indurated, with abaxial transverse line (and usually abaxial ridge) c. 0.3 mm below lobes, partly pubescent; lobes flat at base; midlobe (including awn) 6–9 mm long and 3-nerved; lateral lobes (with awns) 5–6.5 mm long and 2-nerved; awns scaberulous, straight or recurved, glabrous. Palea 2.2–4 mm long, truncate, entire or bifid or 2-lobed; body abruptly bitextured, coriaceous near base, membranous or hyaline above, usually pubescent between keels; keels obtuse near base, acute above; flaps with narrow hyaline margins. Anthers 1.8–2.8 mm long.
InW.A. it occurs in shallow or skeletal soil, sandy pockets associated withlaterite, sandstone and basalt, and at rocky sites near waterfalls, waterholesand in gorges.
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