Flora of North America species comparison

obscurely to ca. 10-ribbed when dry, terete, 1–12 cm × 0.4–1 mm, very soft, spongy.

not rooting at tips, terete, 10–40 cm, soft to firm, smooth.

distal leaf sheaths fugaceous, colorless, translucent, apex blunt.

distal leaf sheaths proximally brownish or sometimes reddish, distally stramineous to green.

ovoid, 2–3 × 1–1.5 mm, apex acute;

scales 5–15, 5–7 per mm of rachilla, colorless to stramineous, rarely slightly reddish, medially broadly greenish to colorless, faintly 3–5-veined, often ovate, membranous, fleshy;

proximal scale 2–2.5 × 0.7 mm, other scales 1.5–2 × 0.7 mm, midrib obscure to slightly keeled, apex acute to rounded.

ovoid to oblong-subcylindric, 4–12 × 2–3.5 mm, apex acute to rounded;

proximal scale empty, clasping 1/2 of culm, like floral scales;

subproximal 1 or 2 scales often empty;

floral scales 20–100, 10 per mm of rachilla, entirely stramineous or sometimes red-brown, ovate, (1.5–)2–2.5 × 1.5 mm, apex broadly rounded, entire.

perianth bristles equaling achene;

anthers yellow to brown, 0.3–0.5 mm.

perianth bristles (5–)6(–8), brown, stout, the longer equaling achene or tubercle, retrorsely spinulose;

stamens 3;

anthers brown, 1 mm.

brownish, angles plus longitudinal ridges ca. 7, narrowly obovoid, 2 times longer than wide, 0.75–0.9 × 0.35–0.4 mm, trabeculae ca. 50, distinct.

falling with scales, obovoid, angles keeled, 0.8–1 × 0.7–0.8 mm, apex with short neck.

brown, pyramidal, 0.15 × 0.15–0.2 mm.

whitish to brown, mammillate to pyramidal, 0.2–0.3 × 0.3–0.35 mm, 1/3 or less as wide as achene.