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.

polystichous, spreading to ascending, mostly excurved, exceeding or exceeded by culms;

sheaths entire, backs glabrous;

ligule absent;

blades setaceous-filiform, to 0.5 mm wide, flat to involute, sparsely scabrid-ciliate.

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 simple, open, nearly as broad as long, ascending-branching, umbelliform, of 3–10 cormose spikelets;

scapes filiform, 0.5–0.6 mm thick;

proximalmost involucral bracts setaceous-bladed, exceeding anthela.

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

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

pale green to light brown, ovoid to globose or short-cylindric, 2–5 mm;

fertile scales lance-linear to oblong-linear, 1.5 mm, glabrous, midrib strongly excurrent, erect to excurved cusp.

stamens usually 1;

styles 2-fid, slender, glabrous.

stamens 1;

styles 2-fid, slender, glabrous.

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

pale brown with iridescent tints, curved-cylindric, 0.4–0.6 mm, finely reticulate, in 12 vertical rows of narrowly rectangular, horizontal cells.

= 56.

= 10.