Tufted perennial with short rhizome. Culms rigid, erect, terete, striate, glabrous, smooth, 60–120(–200) cm high, 1.2–2 mm diam. Leaf-blades reduced, to 10 cm long, less than 1 mm diam.; sheaths very dark red-brown to dark grey-brown, straw-coloured near apex, not viscid, ± dull. Inflorescence shortly oblong in outline, erect, with rachis usually strongly flexuose, 2–6 cm long, 1.5–3 cm diam.; involucral bract shorter than inflorescence. Spikelets few, 7–12 mm long; glumes 4 or 5, mucronate (mucro to 3 mm long), slightly scabrous near apex, pale red-brown to grey-brown, the 2 or 3 lowest scarcely shorter than fertile glumes, which are 8–11 mm long; hypogynous scales 3, not or scarcely inflated, ± filiform, yellowish, from one-fifth to one-third length of nut, often at one side of nut only; stamen filaments inflated at base and remaining on nut. Nut ovoid, grey-brown, smooth, 4–5 mm long, 1.5–2.0 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
GleP, GipP, OtP, GGr, EGL, EGU, WPro, HSF. Also NSW, Tas. Occasional, usually in dense, wet heathland, commonly on granite-derived soils.
