Tufted annual. Culms weakly erect, terete, striate, nodeless, 2–11 cm high, 0.5–1.0 mm diam. Leaves with blade to 5 cm long; sheath reddish, striate or smooth, shining; mouth glabrous; ligule present. Inflorescence erect, mostly 1–4(–10) cm long, with spikelets loosely clustered at 1–5 nodes; lowest involucral bract to 7 cm long. Spikelets narrow-ovate, acute, 2–6-flowered, 3–8 mm long; glumes 4–8, lowest 1 or 2 empty, acute, straw-coloured with red-brown patches, shining, with glabrous margins and slightly wrinkled midvein; fertile glumes 2.5–4 mm long; hypogynous bristles absent or several, minute. Nut trigonous, obpyriform to obovoid, prominently 3-ribbed, each face with 2 central columns of large pits and laterally smooth or minutely trabeculate, glabrous, shining, white to grey, 1–1.5 mm long, 0.6–0.8 mm diam. Flowers late winter–early summer.
Wim, GleP, CVU, GGr, DunT. Also WA, SA. Occurs in seasonally wet depressions in sandy heathlands and woodlands in south-western Victoria (e.g. northern and north-western Grampians, Casterton-Dergholm area), but rare.
