Flora of North America species comparison

20–90 cm;

vegetative culms inconspicuous with few leaves clustered at apex.

acutely angled, 75–150 cm, scabrous.

sheaths white-hyaline or green-veined, sometimes papillose, summits U-shaped, not distally expanded;

distal ligules 2.2–6 mm;

blades 3–4 per fertile culm, 11–25 cm × 1.7–4.2 mm.

basal sheaths red-brown;

sheaths of proximal leaves bladeless, scabrous, fronts with brown spots, prominently ladder-fibrillose, apex U-shaped;

blades 10–15 mm wide.

mostly dense, brown, 1.1–3 cm × 5–14 mm;

proximal internode 1–4 mm; 2d internode 1.4–3.4 mm;

proximal bracts scalelike, with bristle tips shorter than inflorescences.

3–10, usually overlapping, ovoid to globose, 4–10 × 3–7 mm, base rounded or truncate, apex rounded.

erect; staminate 3–4; pistillate 3–5; the proximal pistillate spike 4–13 cm × 5–7 mm, base attenuate.

ascending to ascending-spreading, light to dark reddish brown, conspicuously 3+-veined abaxially, faintly or basally 1–3-veined adaxially, winged to base, ovate or elliptic, plano-convex, 2.5–3.8 × (1–)1.2–2 mm, 0.35–0.45 mm thick, 1.9–2.5 times as long as wide, margin flat, including wing 0.2–0.5 mm wide, 1b ciliate-serrulate at least distally;

beak reddish brown at tip, flat, ± ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with reddish brown-hyaline margin, distance from beak tip to achene 1.2–2.2 mm.

ascending, pale brown with red-brown spots throughout, 5–7-veined on each face, somewhat flattened, loosely enclosing achenes, ellipsoid, 3.2–3.5 × 2 mm, dull, apex obtuse or acute, papillose;

beak 0.2–0.3 mm.

ovate or elliptic, 1–1.3 × 0.6–0.9 mm, 0.3–0.4 mm thick.

not constricted, dull.

scales reddish brown, usually with green or whitish to brown midstripe, lanceolate, 2.5–3.5 mm, shorter and narrower than perigynia, apex acuminate or acute.

scales red-brown, equaling perigynia, apex acute, awnless.

bract longer than inflorescence, 10–12 mm wide.

= 68, 70.