Lepidosperma hispidulum

Clump-forming perennial with short rhizome, or sometimes long-rhizomatous and forming extensive colonies. Culms rigid, erect, flat, or with 1 face convex and the other flat, rarely biconvex, ± striate, glabrous, smooth, 20–60 cm high, (3–)4–5 mm wide; margins smooth. Leaf-blades virtually erect, similar to culms in form but moslty slightly shorter, pungent; sheaths pale to brown, occasionally slightly viscid. Inflorescence elliptic to rhombic in outline, erect, usually rather dense with the rachis not particularly obvious between clusters of spikelets, 7–16 cm long, 1–4 cm wide; main bract to about two-thirds the length of the inflorescence, ± pungent; involucral bracts subtending each cluster of spikelets usually indistinct, not exceeding the cluster. Spikelets usually numerous, 5.5–7 mm long; glumes 4–7, puberulous or scaberulous, red-brown to blackish, the 2 or 3 lowest glumes empty, slightly shorter than fertile glumes, broad-acute to acute, mucronate; fertile glumes 4.7–4.9 mm long, acuminate to subulate at apex, often mucronate; hypogynous scales 6, whitish to yellowish, from one-quarter to one-half length of nut. Nut ellipsoid to ovoid, pale to mid-brown at maturity, sometimes mottled, smooth, shining, minutely hispid at apex, 3.2–3.7 mm long (including hypogynous scales), 1.7–1.9 mm diam. Flowers mostly autumn, fruits mostly spring.