Flora of North America species comparison

lax, leafy, mostly excurved, slender.

erect to spreading, leafybased;

scapes nearly filiform, nearly trigonous, few ribbed.

shorter than culm;

blades ascending, narrowly linear, proximally flat, 2–4(–5) mm wide, apex trigonous, short-subulate, tapering.

spreading to erect, exceeded by scape;

blades filiform to linear, proximally flat or involute, becoming involute, 0.4–2 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.

spikelet clusters 3–7(–10), dense, all but most distal widely spaced, broadly turbinate to ovate or hemispheric.

terminal, solitary, headlike, dense, white, leafyinvolucrate, 0.5–1 cm wide;

involucral bracts 3–6, spreading to recurved, whitebased, greentipped, narrowly linear, longest bract elongatesubulate, 4–8 cm × 2–5 mm.

light red-brown, lanciform, 5 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales lanceolate, 4–4.5 mm, apex acuminate, midrib excurrent as awn.

white, ovoid, 4–6 mm;

scales several, boatshaped, basal ones with ciliolate keel, fertile ones 3–3.8 mm.

bristles 6, reaching past tubercle base, usually to or slightly past its tip, antrorsely barbellate.

perianth absent.

2(–4) per spikelet;

stipe and receptacle curled-setose, (0.5–)0.6–08(–1) mm;

body glossy, brown with pale center, narrowly obovoid-lenticular, 1.2–1.5 mm, surfaces minutely striate, sometimes transversely minutely rugulose with wavy rows of dark minute dots;

margins narrow, strong, flowing to tubercle;

tubercle narrowly triangular, slightly concave-sided, flattened, setulose-ciliate, 0.7–1.1 mm.

1–1.2 mm;

body yellow to black, nearly orbicular, tumidly lenticular, 0.8–1 × 0.6–0.7(–1) mm;

surface lattices shortlinear, vertical in fine undulating rows, with ends raised to rounded, transverse rugulosities;

tubercle lowtriangular, lunate, 0.2–0.3 mm, apex acute, blunt or apiculate.