Flora of North America species comparison

polystichous, mostly spreading or excurved, often exceeding culms;

sheaths entire, abaxially smooth or sparsely hirtellous;

ligule absent;

blades filiform, to 0.5 mm wide, somewhat involute, abaxially glabrous or ascending-strigillose.

nearly polystichous, spreading to ascending, 1/2 as long as culms;

sheaths contracted, abruptly dilated, margins fimbriate-ciliate distally;

ligule present, complete;

blades narrowly linear, 1.5–2.5 mm wide, flat to shallowly involute, margin intermittently scabrid-ciliate, abaxial surface usually glabrous.

terminal;

spikelets sessile or subsessile in single capitate leafy-involucrate cluster;

scapes filiform;

involucral bracts leafy, setaceous, greatly overtopping inflorescence.

anthelae mostly simple, of 2–7(–9) spikelets, ascending-branched, slightly mostly longer than broad, scapes slender, 1 mm wide, to very compressed distally;, proximalmost involucral bract shorter than anthela.

greenish, cylindric to lanceoloid-cylindric, 5–10 mm;

fertile scales narrowly ovate to lanceolate, 1–1.5 mm, acute, glabrous, midrib strong, excurrent as cusp.

red-brown, narrowly ovoid to lanceoloid or cylindric, 5–15 mm, fertile scales broadly ovate, 4.5–5 mm, glabrous to puberulent, midrib excurrent as cusp or mucro.

stamens 1;

styles 2-fid, slender, bulbous-based, smooth or papillate.

stamens 3, styles 2-fid, flat, fimbriate.

pale, tumidly obovoid, 0.5–0.7 mm, cancellate, pits horizontally rectangular in 5–7 vertical rows per side.

dark brown to greenish brown, obovoid-lenticular, 1.2–1.5 mm, faces each 11–13-ribbed, cancellate, ribs connected by vertical rows of transversely rectangular pits.

= 20.