2n = c. 64

Stout, rigid tufts to 35 cm tall. Female spikes ± 5, erect, stoutly pedunculate, to ± 7.5 × 1.5 cm, brown. Glumes light to dark brown or red-purple much > utricles. Stigmas 3.

Tufts stout, rigid, lfy, pale green. Culms 5–35 cm. × 1.5–3 mm., trigonous, smooth, sturdy; basal sheaths light brown. Lvs not overtopping infl., 6–8 mm. wide, double-folded, margins slightly thickened, densely but finely serrate, particularly towards the tapered tip; base of lf neither sheathing nor enlarged but marked by a purplish ligule. Infl. of 6–8 us. simple, light brown spikes; uppermost 2–4 spikes male, shorter and more slender than the female, sessile, ± approximate; remaining spikes female with a few male fls at the top, 3–7.5 × 1–1.5 cm., erect on stout peduncles, both spikes and peduncles becoming progressively shorter higher up the infl.; subtending bracts lfy, > infl., almost enclosing the peduncles with their sheaths. Glumes much > utricles, linear-lanceolate, emarginate or entire, faintly nerved, membr., light brown to dark brown or red-purple, paler towards the margins, midrib pale brown produced to a long hispid awn. Utricles 3–4.5 × c. 2 mm., unequally biconvex, obovoid, turgid, pale green or brownish green, lateral nerves well-marked, otherwise smooth, margins glab., abruptly contracted to a narrow, deeply bidentate beak slightly > 0.5 mm. long, orifice slightly scabrid; stipe c. 0.5 mm. long, whitish. Stigmas 3. Nut c. 2 mm. long, trigonous, oblong-obovoid, pale grey-brown.