Perennial with short rhizome. Culms erect, rigid, terete, striate, nodeless or with 1 node near base, 30–80 cm high, 0.5–1 mm diam. Leaves with blade to 3 cm long; sheath dark red-brown near base, straw-coloured near apex, smooth, shining; mouth glabrous with margins ± overlapping; ligule present. Inflorescence narrow, erect, 3.5–10 cm long, with spikelets clustered at 2–4 nodes; lowest involucral bract c. 1 cm long. Spikelets narrow-ovate, acute, 2–4-flowered, 3–9 mm long; glumes 5–8, lowest 4–6 empty, long-acute, sides mostly hyaline, red-brown towards midvein and base, shining, with glabrous hyaline margins; fertile glumes c. 4.5 mm long; hypogynous bristles absent. Nut trigonous, ellipsoid, scarcely 3-ribbed, smooth to faintly reticulate, glabrous, shining, white to grey, 1.6–1.8 mm long, 0.7–1.0 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
GleP, Brid, GipP, WaP, GGr, WPro, HSF, Strz. Also SA, Tas. New Zealand. Scattered but uncommon in Victoria, where known from damp heaths in the far south-west near Portland, the Victoria Valley in the Grampians and disjunct occurrences in the Gembrook-Tonimbuk area and Wilsons Promontory.
