Slender perennial with short thick rhizome. Culms trigonous, smooth, 20–50 cm high, 1–2.5 mm diam. Leaves scarcely septate-nodulose, shorter than culms, 1–2 mm wide. Inflorescence simple or compound with 4–8 branches to 4 cm long or head-like; digitate clusters 1–1.5 cm diam.; involucral bracts leaf-like, 3 or 4 exceeding the inflorescence. Spikelets flattened, numerous per cluster, 4–12 mm long, 0.8–2.5 mm wide in side view, 10–24-flowered; rachilla not winged, persistent; glumes with 3-nerved keel, dark red-brown, 1.5–2 mm long; stamen 1. Nut trigonous, obovoid to ellipsoid, grey-brown, two-fifths as long as glume, 0.8–1.4 mm long, c. 0.4 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
VRiv, GipP. Also naturalised in NSW. Native to North and South America. Known in Victoria by a few collections on swampy or irrigated farmland between Bendigo and Shepparton, and weedy parkland at Endeavour Hills (south-eastern suburb of Melbourne).
Source:
Wilson, K.L. (1994). Cyperaceae. In: Walsh, N.G.; Entwisle, T.J., Flora of Victoria Vol. 2, Ferns and Allied Plants, Conifers and Monocotyledons, pp. 238–356. Inkata Press, Melbourne.
