Flora of North America species comparison

erect or ascending, leafy, trigonous.

erect or ascending, terete to obscurely trigonous, multiribbed, densely leafybased, slender, stiff, papillose to scabridpuberulent.

exceeded by culm;

blades linear, proximally 4–7 mm wide, apex trigonous, tapering.

forming strong rosette, distal widely spaced, much exceeded by scape;

basal leaf blades shortlinear, flat, 4–6 mm wide, culm leaf blades narrower, longer, all ciliate, apex bluntly acute.

terminal and axillary;

clusters 3–6, mostly dense, narrowly to broadly turbinate, branches ascending; leafy bracts exceeeding proximalmost inflorescences.

terminal;

spikelet cluster 1, crowded, hemispheric, often lobed, to 2 cm wide;

bracts strongly ciliate distally;

longer leafy bracts exceeding cluster.

rich brown, ovoid, (3–)4–5 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales ovate, 2.5–3.5 mm, apex acuminate, midrib included or shortexcurrent.

dark redbrown, ovoid, 4–5(–6) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly ovate, 4–4.5 mm, apex blunt, sometimes apiculate or with mucro to 1 mm, midrib scabrid.

perianth bristles mostly 6, exceeding tubercle tip.

bristles 6, some vestigial, none reaching past fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.

mostly 3–4 per spikelet, 2–2.2 mm;

body brown on short pedicellar (to 0.3 mm) stalk, broadly obovoid, lenticular, 1.3–1.5 × 1–1.5 mm, surfaces transversely rugulose, vertically finely striate and rectangularalveolate;

tubercle compressed, triangular acuminate, 0.5–0.8 mm, edges setulose.

1–2 per spikelet, (1.9–)2–2.5 mm;

body dark brown with paler center, lenticular, broadly ellipsoid to orbicular, 1.6–2 × 1.5–1.6 mm, margins flowing to tubercle;

tubercle lowtriangular, 0.5 mm, often apiculate.