Tufted perennial, 30-70 cm. Rhizome short, thick, dark, with fibrous scales. Stem erect or ascending, trigonous, smooth. Leaves from 3/4 of stem length to overtopping it; sheaths c. 40 mm, yellowish grey or brownish, soft; ligule c. 0.5 mm, white, scarious; blades 5-7 mm wide, margins and mid-nerve on abaxial side scabrous towards apex. Inflorescence of 4-5 lax partial inflorescences at leaf axils, sometimes two at same axil, these much branched and spreading; bracts almost equalling to overtopping the inflorescence; lowest sheath to 50 mm; inflorescence axis sharply angular, grooved, conspicuously scabrous; female glumes hispid, acute to long-acuminate, 1.8-2.2 x 0.7-0.9 mm, apex ciliate, with arista to 0.8 mm; utricles 3.3-4 x 1-1.2 mm, plano-convex, glabrous, prominently nerved, tightly enveloping fruit, green, beak 1.1-1.4 mm, cylindrical, glabrous or barbed along marginal nerves, or scabrous all over, ostiole wide, with scarious margins, oblique. Nut 2.3-2.8 x 0.9-1 mm, incl. c. 0.4 mm style base and c. 0.4 mm stipe, brown, fusiform, triangular, finely reticulate with papilla in each areole.