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.

distichous, in fans, to ca. 2/3 plant height;

sheaths keeled, equitant, margins entire;

ligule absent;

blades bifacial (flattened in same plane as sheath), narrowly triangularlinear, to 2 mm wide, margins scabrid at least distally.

terminal;

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

scapes filiform;

involucral bracts leafy, setaceous, greatly overtopping inflorescence.

anthela compound, usually diffuse, branched, broadening upward, often as broad as long;

scapes slender, angularly ribbed and/or somewhat compressed distally, 1–1.5 mm wide or thick;

involucral bracts exceeded by 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.

dark red-brown, broadly ovoid to near round, 2–4 min;

fertile scales broadly ovate to orbiculate, 1 mm, glabrous, apex broadly rounded, midrib not excurrent.

stamens 1;

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

stamens 1–2;

styles 3-fid, slender, base dilated, apex pubescent.

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

pale brown, tumid, obovoid, 1 mm, apiculate, reticulate, with pits narrowly rectangular in 4–6 vertical rows per side, the longitudinal ribs most prominent and mostly warty.

= 20.

= 10.