Plant erect, 45–52 cm tall with several simple stems arising from the base, quadrangular above, terete below, glabrous or with a few multicellular hairs. Leaves broadly linear, acute, c. 30–80 x 1.5–6 mm, ± appressed-pilose. Inflorescence ± pinkish, subcapitate in flower, elongating to c. 3 cm in fruit. Fertile flowers compressed: outer 2 tepals broadly lanceolate, c. 4 mm, with a strong midrib and 3 weaker lateral nerves on each side, floccose along the basal margins; inner 2 curved, navicular, densely lanate, median tepal intermediate, with the base and margins lanate. Modified sterile flower a large-celled cylinder finally up to c. 2.5 mm long, floccose on the adaxial surface and crowned with 1–2 green subauriculiform processes c. 1 mm long, little if anything of the cylinder exserted from the broad bracteole. Style c. 2 mm. long.