Perennial with short stout rhizome. Culms erect to weeping, rigid, terete, striate, nodeless, 30–125 cm high, 1.3–2.5 mm diam. Leaves with short obtuse blade to 0.5 cm long; sheath very dark red-brown to blackish, finely scabrous, dull or glistening; mouth villous; ligule present as narrow line. Inflorescence narrow, erect or drooping, 4–20 cm long, with spikelets clustered at 4–7 nodes; lowest involucral bract to 0.3 cm long. Spikelets narrow-ovate, acute, 1–3-flowered, 4–10 mm long; glumes 7–11, the lowest 4–6 empty, acute, dark red-brown to blackish, dull or glistening, with woolly or ciliate margins; fertile glumes 4–7 mm long; hypogynous bristles 0–5, not plumose, shorter than nut. Nut trigonous, ellipsoid, scarcely 3-ribbed, transversely wrinkled, glabrous, dull, pale red-brown, 1.5–1.7 mm long, c. 0.8 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
EGL, EGU, OtR. Also Qld, NSW. Borneo. Occurs in damp areas fringing springs and watercourses, often openings in near-coastal or lowland forest, from about Cann River eastwards.
