Flora of North America species comparison

20–150 cm.

10–45 cm, smooth to scabrous distally;

bases (remnants of old leaves) slightly or not at all fibrous.

basal sheaths red-brown or brown;

sheaths of proximal leaves glabrous, fronts with indistinct spots, veinless, apex U-shaped;

blades usually amphi-stomic, papillose on both surfaces.

blades pale to bright green, shorter to longer than culms, 0.8–2.5 mm wide, herbaceous, smooth to scabrous abaxially, papillose to scabrous adaxially.

proximal bract longer than inflorescence.

with both staminate and pistillate spikes;

peduncles of staminate spikes 0.4–9.9 mm;

proximal nonbasal bracts leaflike, shorter than inflorescences.

erect;

proximal 2–6 spikes pistillate;

terminal (1–)2–4 spikes staminate.

proximal pistillate spikes 1–4 (basal spikes 0);

cauline spikes overlapping, proximal 2 spikes usually separated by less than 7 mm, with 4–14 perigynia; staminate spikes 5–14 × 0.5–1.8 mm.

ascending, veinless, somewhat flattened, loosely enclosing achenes, ellipsoid or obovoid, dull, apex obtuse or acute, papillose.

pale green, veinless, ellipsoid, 2.3–3.3 × 0.8–1.2 mm, longer than wide;

beak straight, pale green, 0.6–1.1 mm, weakly ciliate-serrulate, apical teeth 0.1–0.4 mm.

not constricted, glossy.

brown, ellipsoid, acutely trigonous in cross section, 1.2–1.7 × 0.7–1.3 mm.

scales red-brown to purple-brown, apex obtuse or acute, awnless.

pistillate scales pale to dark reddish brown, with narrow white margins, lanceolate to ovate or obovate, 2.2–3.4 × 0.4–1.8 mm, equaling or exceeding perigynia, apex usually acuminate, sometimes acute or mucronate; staminate scales lanceolate to ovate, 2.8–6 × 0.6–1.9 mm, apex acute to acuminate.

1.5–2.7 mm.

3.

= 72–80.