Flora of North America species comparison

polystichous, mostly spreading-excurved, to 1/2 as long as culms;

sheaths usually entire;

ligule absent;

blades linear, 2–3 mm wide, flat or shallowly involute, margin scabrid, apex blunt.

erect or ascending, 1/2–2/3 plant height, bases of leaves hard, leathery, usually dark brown or castaneous;

sheaths distally bristly-ciliate, backs chestnut brown, glabrous;

ligule absent;

blades narrowly linear, 1–2(–3) mm wide or thick, mostly strongly involute or adaxially deeply sulcate, margins scabridulous, surfaces glabrous.

simple or compound anthelae with numerous small pedunculate clusters of sessile spikelets;

scapes linear, distally terete, 1–2 mm thick;

involucral bracts short, usually shorter than inflorescence.

anthelae mostly compound, ascending-branched, longer than broad;

scapes wandlike, narrowly linear, 1.5–2(–3) mm thick, distally round or slightly compressed;

proximalmost leafy involucral bract mostly shorter than anthela or equaling it, rarely slightly longer.

greenish brown or yellow-brown, ovoid, 2–3 mm;

fertile scales broadly ovate, 1–1.5 mm, obtuse or apically notched, midrib not excurrent.

chestnut brown to dull brown, ellipsoid, ovoid, or cylindric, 5–20 mm;

fertile scales broadly ovate to nearly orbiculate, 3.5–4.5 mm, apex rounded, sometimes ciliolate, midrib reaching tip or excurrent as short mucro.

stamens usually 1;

styles 2-fid, slender, glabrous.

stamens 2–3;

styles 2-fid, flat, fimbriate.

dark brown to nearly black, tumidly obovoid, rarely obscurely 3-ribbed, 1 mm, faintly striate to variously warty, faintly reticulate.

lustrous brown, lenticular-obovoid or obpyriform, 1.5–2 mm, appearing striate, with many fine, vertical lines of isodiametric pits.

= 56.

= 20.