It is an important pioneer species which colonises coastal dunes, binding loose sand with its horizontal runners.[1][2]
The 1889 book The Useful Native Plants of Australia records that common names included "Spring Rolling Grass" and that it "has no claim whatever as a food plant for stock, and can only be recommended as a sand-binder in fixing drift sands when encroaching on valuable land. For this purpose it deserves more attention than has hitherto been bestowed upon it. It is a plant of comparatively rapid growth, and would give effectual aid in checking the inroads of wind-driven sand, conditionally that the plants be carefully conserved from fire."[3]
Spinifex sericeus has branched stolons and rhizomes extending up to 1–2 metres (3.3–6.6 ft). The leaves have a ligule of a rim of dense hairs; the blades are flat and densely silky.[1]
The male inflorescence is an orange-brown terminal cluster of spiky racemes subtended by silky bracts. The female inflorescence detaches at maturity, a globose seed head of sessile racemes up to 20 cm in diameter which becomes a tumbleweed.[1]
