Small tufted annual. Culms erect, terete, grooved, nodeless, 0.5–4 cm high, 0.2–0.4 mm diam. Leaves with blade to 2 cm long; sheath red-brown, smooth, shining; mouth glabrous; ligule absent. Inflorescence with 1 or 2 clusters of 1–5 spikelets, erect, 0.4–1 cm long; lowest involucral bract to 2 cm long. Spikelets narrow-ovate, acute, 2–4-flowered, 2.5–6.5 mm long; glumes 4–7, lowest 2 empty, acute, straw-coloured to dark red-brown, shining, with glabrous margins, midvein occasionally scabrous; fertile glumes 2.3–4.5 mm long; hypogynous bristles 6, plumose or not, slightly shorter to slightly longer than nut. Nut trigonous, obpyriform, 3-ribbed, coarsely and strongly reticulate, glabrous, shining, whitish to straw-coloured, 0.8–1.0 mm long, 0.4–0.6 mm diam. Flowers winter–spring.
LoM, Wim, VRiv, Gold, CVU, GGr, DunT. Also WA, SA. In seasonally wet habitats.
