Dense harshly scabrid tussocks to 1.2 m high. Inflorescence a narrow panicle 10-26 cm long with stiff erect branches. Spikes numerous, sessile, light grey- or yellow-brown, male flowers at top. Utricles greyish-brown, nerved. Stigmas 2.

Rhizomatous; clumps dense. Rhizome 5 mm. diam. Culms 15–90 cm. × c. 1.5 mm., trigonous, grooved, harshly scabrid; basal sheaths shining, grey-brown to dark brown almost black. Lvs much > culms, 50–120 cm. × (1.5)–2–4–(4.5) mm., channelled, light green, harsh and rigid, keel and margins strongly scabrid. Infl. 10–26 cm. long, a narrow panicle with stiff erect branchlets, the lowermost quite distant. Spikes , androgynous, 4–6 mm. long, sessile, grey- or yellow-brown, male fls terminal, lower spikes on each branchlet subtended by a pale membr. bract with a long scabrid awn often > spike. Glume ± = or slightly < utricles, membr., ovate, acute, dull brown, with a prominent pale midrib often scabrid in lowermost glumes. Utricles 2–2.5 × c. 1 mm., plano-convex, ovoid, light grey with distinct brown nerves; tapering to a brown beak c. 0.5 mm. long with a bifid orifice and conspicuously denticulate margins; abruptly contracted to a narrow stipe c. 0.2 mm. long. Stigmas 2. Nut slightly > 1 mm. long, biconvex, ovoid, dark brown.