Rush-like. Rhizome 3–7 mm. diam., woody, occ. much elongated, covered with loose, papery, imbricate, light brown bracts. Culms (20)–30–135 cm. × 1–2.5–(3.5) mm., arising in tufts separated along a thick rhizome, terete, rigid, erect, smooth, pale blue-green, with 1–2 distant nodes. Lvs all reduced to light brown or reddish sheathing bracts, the lowermost smaller, mucronate, the upper 1–3 longer, distant along the culm, us. dark brown at the orifice, with a small, sickle-shaped, laterally flattened mucro-like lamina up to 5 mm. long. Infl. 2.5–7–(10) cm. long, stiff, erect, spike-like, sparingly branched, subtended by a much shorter sheathing bract. Spikelets not fascicled, 4–5 mm. long, red-brown, 1–2-fld, only the lowest fl. fertile. Glumes 4–5, oblong-lanceolate, acute, membr., streaked with brown, scabrid on the keel and towards the tip. Nut 2.5–3 × c. 1.5 mm., oblong-ovoid, obscurely trigonous, dark brown to black, orange near the base, surface pitted, surmounted by the small, tumid, pubescent style-base.