Flora of North America species comparison

15–100 cm, 1.5–3 mm wide basally, 0.9–1.1 mm wide distally.

acutely angled, 50–100 cm, scabrous.

sheaths tight, green, fronts hyaline, yellow-brown and thickened at mouth;

ligules to 3 mm, wider than long;

blades 2.5–4 mm at widest.

basal sheaths red-brown;

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

blades 4–8 mm wide.

forming dense heads, with 4–8 spikes, 1–1.5 times as long as wide, 1–2 cm × 9–14 mm;

proximal bracts not more than 2 cm;

spikes with 8–20 ascending to spreading perigynia.

proximal bract shorter than inflorescence, 3–5 mm wide.

erect;

staminate 2–3;

pistillate 2–4;

proximal pistillate spike 3–7 cm × 3–5 mm, base cuneate.

pale green to pale brown, weakly veined or veinless abaxially, 3–4.1 × (1.7–)2–2.6 mm, margins serrulate distally;

beak 0.8–1 mm, apical teeth 0.2–0.3 mm.

ascending, pale brown with red-brown spots on apical 1/2, 3–7-veined on each face, somewhat flattened, loosely enclosing achenes, thick-walled, ellipsoid or ovoid, 3–3.5 × 2–2.2 mm, somewhat leathery, dull, often scabrous on apical margins, apex obtuse, papillose;

beak pale brown or red-brown, 0.2–0.3 mm.

suborbiculate, 1.5–1.7 × 1.3–1.5 mm.

not constricted, dull.

scales brownish to green-hyaline with green, 3-veined center, ovate, 2.3–3.1 × 1.2–2 mm, narrower than and as long as perigynia, apex cuspidate to short-awned.

scales dark red-brown to black, shorter than perigynia, apex obtuse, awnless.

1.1–1.7 mm.