Slender tufted perennial with short rhizome. Culms rigid, erect, biconvex or rarely flattened on 1 face, glabrous, smooth, 15–40 cm high, 1–2.5 mm wide; margins smooth to scabrous. Leaf-blades similar in form to culms but shorter, 1–2.5 mm wide; sheath mostly straw-coloured or with dark brown base or occasionally mostly reddish, not viscid, ± shining. Inflorescence ± linear in outline, narrow, erect, 2–8 cm long, 0.5–1 cm diam.; involucral bract shorter than inflorescence. Spikelets few, 3.5–5.5 mm long; glumes 4–7, minutely scabrous near apex, red-brown, the 2 or 3 lowest empty, shorter than fertile glumes, acute, mucronate; fertile glumes 2.5–4.5 mm long, long-acute; hypogynous scales 6–8, yellowish, from one-third to one-half length of nut. Nut ovoid, pale brown, wrinkled to smooth, shining, 2.5–3.3 mm long, 1.2–1.7 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.