2n = c. 78–84

Reddish- or yellow-green tussocks to 75 cm high; rhizome stout, long or short. Inflorescence usually 7-18 cm long, narrow, branches short with many pale straw-coloured ± distant sessile spikes. Male flowers above female. Stigmas 2.

Rhizomatous; reddish yellow or yellow-green clumps, often forming large tussocks. Rhizome c. 5 mm. diam., woody, covered with dark brown, fibrous remnants of lf-sheaths. Culms singly from the rhizome but approximate, 30–75–(100) cm. × c. 1 mm., drooping above, trigonous, glab. below, very finely scabrid on the angles close under the infl.; basal sheaths dull dark grey-brown or yellow-brown. Lvs < culms, 10–40–(60) cm. × 1–3.5 mm., channelled, keel well-marked, margins scabrid towards the tip. Infl. (5.5)–7–18 cm. long, a compound spike, or, in larger specimens, a slender panicle with distant, appressed branchlets, spikes 10–20–(30), pale straw-coloured, ± distant, lower spikes and branchlets subtended by a membr. long-awned bract with awn and keel often scabrid, lowermost bracts occ. lf-like, > panicle. Spikes androgynous, lower spikes often wholly female, the upper with 2–3 male fls at the top, or rarely all spikes predominantly male. Glumes > utricles, lanceolate, acuminate or awned, membr., light creamy brown with a pale cream centre and very broad transparent margins. Utricles 4–5 × c. 1 mm., plano-convex, rather finely nerved; beak tapered, 1.5–2 mm. long, winged with serrate margins; stipe c. 1 mm. long, occ. not much contracted. Stigmas 2. Nut c. 2 mm. long, plano-convex to biconvex, oblong, smooth, dark brown.