Flora of North America species comparison

acutely angled, 40–150 cm, scabrous.

20–100 cm;

vegetative culms with few leaves clustered at apex.

basal sheaths red-brown or brown;

sheaths of proximal leaves bladeless, glabrous, fronts red-brown to copper-brown, spots absent, indistinctly ladder-fibrillose, apex U-shaped;

blades hypostomic, abaxially papillose.

sheath summits U-shaped;

distal ligules 2.3–4.8 mm;

blades 3–5 per fertile culm, 10–32 cm × 1.4–3(–3.5) mm.

arching or nodding, dense or open, green, yellow, or brown at maturity, 1.5–6 cm × 5–20 mm;

proximal internode 2–12 mm; 2d internode 2–13 mm;

proximal bracts scalelike, with bristle tip.

usually pendent; staminate 1–3, base cuneate or attenuate.

3–10, distinct, ellipsoid, 7–16 × 3–9(–13) mm, base acute to short-attenuate, apex acute to rounded.

divergent, pale brown, inflated, loosely enclosing achenes, obovoid, dull, apex rounded, obtuse or truncate, glabrous.

ascending or rarely widely spreading, golden brown, conspicuously 5-veined on each face or fewer adaxially, winged to base, lanceolate, flat except over achene, 4.2–6.8 × 1.2–2 mm, length at least 3 times width, 0.35–0.55 mm thick, margin flat, including wing 0.2–0.6 mm wide;

beak pale to golden-brown at tip, flattish, ciliate-serrulate, abaxial suture with white or golden brown hyaline margin, distance from beak tip to achene 2.2–4.8 mm.

constricted on one or both margins or lacking constrictions;

style base straight.

ovate or elliptic, 1.3–1.7 × 0.7–0.9 mm, 0.3–0.4 mm thick.

bract longer than inflorescence, 3–6 mm wide.

scales pale to copper-brown, midvein reaching apex, broad, apex of body retuse, aristate.

scales hyaline brown, occasionally with green or gold midstripe, lanceolate, 3.4–4 mm, shorter and narrower than perigynia, apex acuminate.