Flora of North America species comparison

acutely trigonous;

spikelet-bearing culms 16–70 cm × 0.7–0.9 mm; when submersed plants often forming numerous, filiform, flaccid culms without spikelets, sometimes with whorls of slender branches, 0.1–0.3 mm wide;

soft, sometimes septate-nodulose when aquatic, internally spongy, transverse septa incomplete.

often spreading or reclining, 2–25 cm × 0.3–1 mm.

distal leaf sheaths persistent or decaying, membranous, apex obtuse to acuminate.

apex of distal leaf sheath acute to acuminate, tooth sometimes present, to 0.2 mm.

sometimes proliferous (when submerged), 9–33 × 1.5–3 mm;

rachilla joints bearing prominent winglike remnants of floral scales;

proximal scale with a flower, amplexicaulous, (5–)6–9.8 mm;

floral scales 4–18, 0.5–1 per mm of rachilla, stramineous to pale brown, often minutely dotted reddish, without or rarely with darker submarginal band, narrowly ovate to lanceolate, 5–7.8 × 2–3 mm, thickly papery, membranous toward margins, apex narrowly rounded to acute.

ovoid, 2–7 × 1–4 mm, apex subacute;

proximal scale either with flower or empty, base encircling 1/2 of culm;

floral scales 50–100, 10 per mm of rachilla, orange to purple-brown, ovate, 1–1.5 × 0.8 mm, midrib slightly keeled, apex rounded to acute.

perianth bristles 6–7, stramineous to reddish brown, proximally slightly flattened, subequal to equal, much exceeding to rarely shorter than achene, 3–5 mm, retrorsely spinulose;

anthers yellow to reddish, 1.6–3.2 mm;

styles 3-fid.

perianth bristles absent;

stamens 2(–3);

anthers yellow, 0.2–0.3 mm;

styles 2-fid or some 3-fid.

stramineous or medium brown, biconvex or compressed trigonous, narrowly obpyriform, 1.9–2.6 × 1–1.4 mm, adaxial face with 15–22 rows of rectangular, transversely elongated or nearly isodiametric cells, clearly sculptured at 10–15X, apex usually conspicuously constricted to short neck 0.4–0.7 mm wide, usually wider at tubercle base.

0.7–1 × 0.6–0.9 mm.

stramineous to medium brown, high-pyramidal, 0.5–1.1 × 0.3–0.7 mm.

deltoid 0.1–0.2 × 0.25–0.45 mm, 1/3–1/2 as high as wide, 1/8–1/4 as high and 3/4–9/10 as wide as achene.