Flora of North America species comparison

coarse, 1.8–3 mm thick, typically with long, unbranched segments from which shoots arise singly every few nodes.

sharply trigonous, (10–)25–80(–100) cm, scabrous-angled distally.

acutely angled, 40–150 cm, scabrous.

basal sheaths dark brown to nearly black;

sheaths with hyaline inner band, apex not prolonged, glabrous;

ligules 0.6–2.6 mm;

blades 1–3(–3.5) mm wide.

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.

elongate, 0.9–4 cm;

spikes 5–18(–25), usually unisexual; staminate spikes lanceoloid; pistillate spikes ovoid.

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

brown to nearly black at maturity, essentially veinless, usually stipitate, ovate, plano-convex, (2.2–)2.6–3.7 × 1.2–1.9 mm, dull;

beak 0.7–1.2 mm, 1/4–1/2 length of body, apex ± hyaline, obscurely bidentate.

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

constricted on one or both margins or lacking constrictions;

style base straight.

scales straw colored to pale reddish brown, with hyaline margins, ovate, apex acute to acuminate-awned, dull to ± satiny.

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

(1.8–)2.2–3.9 mm, apiculus bristly hairy (30X).

bract longer than inflorescence, 3–6 mm wide.