Tufted perennial. Culms erect, rigid, terete, grooved with grooves hairy at least near base, ± scabrous, nodeless, 15–45 cm high, 0.7–1.0 mm diam. Leaves with blade to 2 cm long; sheath dark to very dark red-brown to blackish, smooth, shining; mouth minutely ciliate; ligule of hairs present. Inflorescence head-like, hemispherical or obconical, 0.4–1.5 cm long; lowest involucral bract to 1.3 cm long. Spikelets ovate to narrow-ovate, acute, 1–3-flowered, 5–7 mm long; glumes 5–7, lowest 3 empty, acute to mucronate, straw-coloured with red-brown patches, ± dull, with sparsely woolly to glabrous margins; fertile glumes 4–5 mm long; hypogynous bristles absent. Nut trigonous, ellipsoid to obovoid, scarcely 3-ribbed, slightly wrinkled, glabrous, dull, red-brown with darker patches, 1.9–2.5 mm long, 1.0–1.3 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
LoM, MuM, RobP. Also WA, SA, Qld, NSW. Occasional in sandy mallee-heath communities in the far north-west.
