Light green, dense yet slender tufts. Rhizome 2–3 mm. diam., with culms closely and evenly spaced along it. Culms (15)–25–120–(165) cm. × 0.5–1.5 mm., terete, rigid and wiry. Lvs reduced to basal, reddish pink, sheathing bracts, but the uppermost often with a terete lamina like the culm. Infl. 5–25 cm. long, very narrow, spike-like; branchlets remote, slender, erect from sheathing mucronate bracts. Spikelets 6–8 mm. long, ± distant, not fascicled, light grey-brown or reddish, distinct at the tips of the branchlets, 1-fld. Glumes us. 3, the 2 lower glumes ± membr., lanceolate, shortly acuminate, the uppermost glume longer, spreading with maturation of the fr. Nut, including beak, c. 2.5 × 1.5 mm., ovoid, trigonous when immature, yellow, narrowed below to a short, dark brown stalk, narrowed above to a dark brown, pyramidal beak, c. 1 mm. long, rounded at the tip.