Native, warm-season perennial, mat-forming grass to 30 cm tall and with extensive stolons and rhizomes. Leaves are green, hairless to sparsely hairy and relatively short. Ligules are short hairs on a membranous rim with longer hairs at each end. Flowerheads are digitate, consisting of 3-7 thin, usually dark-coloured branches (2-6 cm long). Tolerant of flooding; it is often abundant around backswamps, riverbanks and regularly inundated soils. Readily colonises where pastures have been lost and often found in old cropping paddocks and horse paddocks.