Flora of North America species comparison

20–100 cm;

vegetative culms with few leaves clustered at apex.

erect or spreading, (3.1–)8.2–29.7 cm, 0.4–0.9 of total plant height.

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.

basal sheaths pale to medium brown;

blades green, exceeding culms, 1.3–3.2 mm wide, herbaceous, margins green, smooth or slightly scabrous.

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.

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

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.

3–9 per spike, pale green to olive or pale brown, unspeckled, narrowly ovoid to lance-ovoid, (4.5–)4.9–5.7(–6.5) × 1.2–1.7 mm, 1.2–2.2 times as long as wide, tightly enveloping achenes, apex gradually tapering;

beak (1.7–)1.9–2.6(–2.8) mm, scabrous.

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

brown, oblong, (1.8–)2.1–2.5(–2.6) × (1.2–)1.3–1.5(–1.6) mm.

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

scales green, margins hyaline, white, often with reddish brown tinge, 1.6–2.22 mm wide, not more than 1.5 times as wide as and not concealing perigynia, apex attenuate into green awns;

distal scales with hyaline margins 0.3–0.8 mm, apex acute, awnless.

spikes (0–)2–4, basal, on widely spreading to nodding peduncles.

spike with staminate portion 3–29-flowered, 3.4–8.6(–10.3) × 0.7–1.4 mm; pistillate portion 3–9-flowered.

scales green or tinged with brown subapically, 1.4–2.8 × 1.8–2.2 mm, margins free but enfolding scales above, hyaline, white, apex obtuse, erose.

0.9–1.1 mm.

filiform, flexuous, long, slender, strongly papillose.

= 62, 78.