Tufted perennial. Culms erect, rigid, terete, grooved, smooth, nodeless, 8–35 cm high, 0.5–0.8 mm diam. Leaves with blade to 1 cm long; sheath straw-coloured above, red-brown at base, papillose, dull; mouth glabrous or sparsely and minutely ciliate; ligule present. Inflorescence obconical, with 1 cluster of 8–25 spikelets, 0.5–1.5 cm long; lowest involucral bract to 2.5 cm long. Spikelets narrow-ovate to linear, acute, 1–2-flowered, 4–8 mm long; glumes 5–7, lowest 3–5 empty, acute, dark red-brown to blackish above, straw-coloured near base, dull, with minutely woolly to glabrous margins; fertile glumes 4–5 mm long; hypogynous bristles absent. Nut trigonous, obovoid, scarcely 3-ribbed, wrinkled, papillose, glabrous, glistening, straw-coloured to red-brown often with darker patches, 1.3–1.5 mm long, c. 1.0 mm diam. Flowers spring–summer.
GipP, EGL, EGU, VAlp. Also NSW. Occasional in near-coastal heathland and woodland eastward from about Sale.
