Flora of North America species comparison

arching to spreading, 5–31 cm, smooth or scabrous distally;

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

to 90 cm × 5 mm, scabrous.

blades pale green, shorter to longer than culms, 0.9–2.6(–3.2) mm wide, herbaceous, glabrous abaxially, scabrous adaxially.

sheaths all with blades, fronts smooth, red spotted, indistinctly linearly veined, apex red-brown, membranous, truncate, minutely ciliate;

ligules rounded, 2 mm, free limb to 0.5 mm;

blades glaucous, not epistomic, to 90 cm × 12 mm.

with both staminate and pistillate spikes;

peduncles of basal spikes slender, elongate, erect;

peduncles of distal spikes 0.6–4(–10) mm;

proximal nonbasal bracts leaflike, equaling or exceeding inflorescences.

densely spicate, cylindric, elongate, with 15–25 distinguishable branches, 10–20 × 6 cm;

proximal internode to 10 mm;

proximal bracts setaceous, apparent.

pistillate spikes 1–4 (basal spikes 0–2);

cauline spikes overlapping, separated by less than 7 mm, with 4–15 perigynia;

distal staminate spikes 3.1–11.3 × 0.7–2.7 mm.

yellowish green to grayish green, veinless, globose to obovoid, 2.3–3.1 × 1–1.4 mm, as long as or longer than wide;

beak often bent, pale green, occasionally with reddish brown tinge, 0.4–0.8 mm, ciliate-serrulate, apical teeth 0.1–0.2 mm.

pale brown, red-brown distally, 10–12-veined abaxially, 5-veined adaxially, to 8 mm, body to 1.2 mm wide, base to 2.2 mm wide, base distended proximally forming disk, cordate;

stipe to 0.9 mm;

beak to 4.5 mm, mouth deeper abaxially, serrulate, apical teeth somewhat spreading.

brown, obovoid, obtusely trigonous in cross section, 1.3–1.6 × 1–1.4 mm.

ovate, 2.5 × 1.4 mm;

stalk to 0.2 mm;

persistent style base cylindric, 0.3 mm.

pistillate scales pale to dark reddish brown, with narrow to broad white margins, ovate, 2–2.8 × 1–1.8 mm, shorter than perigynia, apex obutse, acute, or acuminate (cuspidate on some basal spikes); staminate scales ovate, 2.4–4 × 1–1.9 mm, apex acute to acuminate.

hyaline.

1.2–2.5 mm.

3.

= 52.