Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect to ascending-arching, slender, nearly terete, multiribbed.

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;

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

bracts strongly ciliate distally;

longer leafy bracts exceeding cluster.

spikelet clusters 3–7, widely spaced, clusters loosely turbinate to hemispheric, to 1.3 cm wide.

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.

brown to pale red-brown, lance-fusiform, 3–5.5 mm;

fertile scales elliptic, 2.5–4 mm, acute, midrib short-excurrent.

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

perianth bristles 6, ± equaling tubercle.

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.

1 per spikelet, (2.5–)2.7–3.3(–3.5) mm, body pale brown with yellowish center, ± broadly oblong-obovoid distal to stipe, lenticular, 1.5–2 × 0.8–1 mm;

tubercle narrowly triangularsubulate, (1–)1.2–1.5(–2) mm, less than 0.5 mm wide at base.

leaves exceeded by culm;

blades flat, linear, 1–2 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.