Small wiry tufts, usually to 10 cm high. Leaves < stems. Inflorescence a single erect dark red-brown head, 8-15 mm long, of 2-4 sessile, contiguous spikes with short glume-like bracts. Male flowers at base of spikes. Utricles wingless, scarcely beaked. Stigmas 2.

Tufted from an ascending rhizome. Culms 3–10–(20) cm. × c. 1 mm., trigonous, wiry, glab., occ. scabrid above; basal sheaths cream, grey or light brown. Lvs us. < culms, < 2 mm. wide, slightly striated, channelled, sts flat, grasslike, tips obtuse to subacute, margins faintly serrulate towards the tip. Infl. a single dark brown terminal head, 8–15 mm. long, of 2–4 contiguous spikes; subtending bracts not conspicuously different from glumes. Spikes androgynous, 5–8 mm. long, male fls at base of spike. Glumes ± =, or slightly < utricles, broadly ovate, obtuse or sub-acute, dark brown with a lighter brown midrib and very broad, pale brown, hyaline margins. Utricles 2.5–3 × c. 1.5 mm., plano-convex, oblong-ovoid, indistinctly nerved, margins glab., contracted to a narrow dark brown to black beak slightly > 0.5 mm. long, puckered below to a broad pale brown stipe, < 0.5 mm. long. Stigmas 2. Nut c. 1.5 mm. long, oblong-obovoid to almost orbicular, light brown.