Slender erect or ascending, loosely tufted annual. Culms very fine, to 40 cm high. Leaves basal, crowded; ligule to 3.5 mm long, obtuse, laciniate; blade mostly flat, to 2.5 mm wide. Panicle open, ovoid to pyramidal, less than twice as long as wide, to 12 cm long, sometimes drooping, distinctly exserted from upper sheath; branches ascending to spreading, but at less than 90 degrees, ultimate branchlets usually flexuouse. Spikelets 1.8–2.5 mm long, often purplish; at least some of the pedicels toward branch apices 2–5 mm long; glumes subequal or lower very slightly longer; lemmas 1.5–1.8 mm long, truncate, awnless; palea minute; anthers 0.4–0.5 mm long. Flowers summer.
HNF, VAlp. Also NSW, Tas. In Victoria, currently known with certainty only from moist gully heads near Mt Cope on the Bogong High Plains and Mt Erica on the Baw Baw plateau, but doubtless more widespread through the higher alps.
