Perennial, caespitose. Rhizome short, tough. Culms stout, faintly trigonous below the inflorescence, otherwise terete, smooth or slighly scabrous below inflorescence, 0.5–2 m high, 1.5–10 mm diam., green. Leaves reduced to sheaths with usually small mucro at apex. Inflorescence compound to decompound, 5–35 cm diam., with numerous primary branches to 10 cm long; digitate clusters 20–60 mm diam.; involucral bracts leaf-like, to 35 cm long, 5–12 mm wide, numerous longer than inflorescence, the margins with numerous inconspicuous teeth. Spikelets flattened, 3–20 per cluster, 2–10 mm long, 1–1.5 mm wide, 15–35-flowered. Glumes densely imbricate, acute or shortly mucronate, 1–2 mm long, straw-coloured to golden or red-brown. Stamens 3. Style 3-fid. Nut trigonous, narrow-ellipsoid to ellipsoid, yellowish to pale brown, 0.8–0.9 mm long, 0.4–0.5 mm diam., stipe if present to 0.1 mm long, apex obtuse, apiculate, surfaces puncticulate. Flowers in spring to autumn.
VVP, GipP, HSF. Also naturalised in WA, NT, SA, Qld, NSW, LHI, NI. Native to from tropical Africa to South Africa, Madagascar, and Arabian Peninsula. In Victoria, known from a recent (2021) collection from Kilsyth South (outer eastern suburb of Melbourne), where growing in a stormwater drain under a stand of Melaleuca ericifolia, and a collection (2023) from a drainage-line at Eltham. There is also an unvouchered observation from St Andrews, where found along a creek.
