Tufted perennial. Culms erect, rigid, terete, often grooved, smooth, nodeless, 14–40 cm high, 0.6–1.7 mm diam. Leaves with blade to 16 cm long, slightly curly; sheath straw-coloured with broad hyaline margins, striate, shining; mouth glabrous; ligule absent. Inflorescence dense, head-like, hemispherical to obovoid, 0.6–1.4 cm long; 2–4 involucral bracts exceeding inflorescence, to 8 cm long. Spikelets narrow-ovate, acute, 1-flowered, 5.5–7 mm long; glumes 5–8, lowest 3–5 empty, long narrow-acute, pale red-brown, dull, with margins ciliate to glabrous; fertile glumes 4.5–6 mm long; hypogynous bristles 6, plumose, about as long as nut. Nut trigonous, obpyriform to obovoid, 3-ribbed, faintly reticulate, minutely scabrous to tuberculate near apex, dull, grey to red-brown, 1.3–2.0 mm long, 1.0–1.4 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
GipP, OtP, GGr, EGL, EGU, OtR, Strz. Also Qld, NSW, Tas. Of localised occurrence in its 4 disjunct localities in Victoria (Grampians, Anglesea, Cape Liptrap and Howe Range east of Mallacoota), occurring on moist, usually coarse, sandy soils, in open woodland and heath.
