Stoutly rhizomatous. Stems terete, to ± 2 m high. Leaves reduced to loose grey-brown papery basal sheaths. Inflorescence of many red-brown ± ovoid spikelets clustered in an irregular umbel with a longer terete bract.

Rhizome 3–8 mm. diam., hard and woody, red-brown, with loose, papery, grey, rather distant scales, c. 2 cm. long; roots very ∞, fibrous, reddish. Culms (60)–100–160–(270) cm. × 3–5–(8) mm., crowded or distant on the rhizome, terete, with spongy pith. Lvs reduced to loose, grey-brown, papery sheaths at base of culms, the uppermost to 35 cm. long. Infl. apparently lateral, of ∞ spikelets in a cymose irregular umbel, primary rays 1–6 cm. long, scabrid; subtending terete bract much < infl. Spikelets 6–11 mm. long, oblong-ovoid or oblong-ellipsoid, light brown, solitary, or in clusters of 2–4 on long, scabrid peduncles. Glumes smooth, ovate, emarginate with an awn in the notch, c. = mature nut in length; margin narrow, hyaline, fringed. Hypog. bristles 5–6, ± = nut, retrorsely scabrid. Stigmas 2, very rarely 3. Nut 2–2.5 × c. 1.5 mm., obovoid, plano-convex, apiculate, smooth, light grey.