Flora of North America species comparison

10–30(–40) cm, bases hard, swollen.

5–10(–15) cm.

¼–1/2 length of scapes;

sheaths brown to stramineous, abaxially glabrous or hirtellous;

blades spreading to erect, filiform, wiry, less than 1 mm wide, involute, margins and adaxial surface glabrous to hispidulous or scabrid.

1/2 as long as to slightly exceeding scapes;

sheaths stramineous to reddish, dilated, strongly ribbed;

blades filiform, 0.5 mm wide, flat or involute, glabrous, margins distantly scabrid.

terminal, mostly in compound, compact or diffuse, involucrate anthelae;

scapes ascending to erect, wiry, 1 mm thick, coarsely ribbed, ribs glabrous or hispidulous to scabrid;

proximal bladed involucral bract exceeding or exceeded by inflorescence.

spikelets of 2 sorts, one sterile, 1(–2) atop filiform scapes or short-stalked to sessile at plant base, red-brown with green midribs, lanceoloid to lance-cylindric, 5–7 mm; the other fertile, the florets developing in sheath axils at culm base; leafy involucral bracts 1, appearing as extension of culm, or absent.

red-brown to chestnut-brown, lanceoloid to cylindric, 4–6 mm, mostly longer than broad;

fertile scales ovate, curvate-keeled, 2–2.5 mm, apex acute, glabrous or papillose-puberulent, midrib excurrent as mucro or mucronula.

scales of sterile spikelets lanciform, keeled, midrib excurrent at mucro;

fertile scales saccate, strongly ribbed, distended by achenes.

stamens 3;

anthers linear, 1–2 mm.

stamens 2;

anthers narrowly oblong, 0.5 mm.

gray to yellow-brown or dark brown, trigonous-obovoid, 1–1.2(–1.5) mm, faces rugulose, papillate;

tubercle a globose button.

pale, lustrous, broadly trigonous-obovoid to subglobose, the fertile 1.5 mm, the sterile 1 mm, faces slightly convex, rugulose, papillose;

tubercle a small depressed or conic button.

= 60.

= 20.