Flora of North America species comparison

lax, leafy, mostly excurved, slender.

lax,filiform, leafy, terete, grooved.

shorter than culm;

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

ascending to erect, exceeded by culm, blades lax, filiform, margins proximally deeply involute, apex trigonous, tapering.

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

mostly cymose clusters, simple or compound, 1–3(–4), widely spaced, loose, narrowly to broadly turbinate;, branchies capillary, ascending to spreading, leafy bracts setaceous, exceeded by or exceeding cymes.

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

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

light redbrown or brown, lanceovoid to fusiform, 3–4(–4.5) mm, apex acuminate, fertile scales ovate, mostly 2–3 mm, apex rounded to acute, midrib included or shortexcurrent.

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

perianth bristles mostly 6, unequal, rarely extending past fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.

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.

1–4 per spikelet, 1.8–2 mm, body yellowbrown to brown, lustrous, tumidly obovoidlenticular, 1–1.5 × 1–1.5 mm, surfaces transversely wavyrugose, intervals vertically striate with narrow alveolae, tubercle flat, triangular, 0.3–0.6 mm.