Flora of North America species comparison

lax, leafy, mostly excurved, slender.

erect to ascending, narrowly linear, wandlike, terete, leafy proximal to middle.

shorter than culm;

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

erect to ascending;

blades proximally flat, 2.5–3.5 mm wide, apex tapering, tip abruptly blunt.

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

terminal, cluster of spikelets crowded, broadly turbinate to hemispheric, to 1.5 cm wide; leafy bracts linearsetaceous, slightly exceeding cluster.

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

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

orangebrown, lancefusiform, 6–7 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales lanceovate, 4–5 mm, apex acuminate with excurved awn to 1 mm.

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

bristles 3–4, some reaching tubercle tip, 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.

1–2 per spikelet, 2–2.1 mm;

body brown with paler center, obovoidlenticular, 1.5–1.7 × 1.2–1.3 mm, margins flowing to tubercle;

surfaces finely transversely striate with minute pits;

tubercle lowtriangular, 0.3–0.5 mm.