Flora of North America species comparison

lax, erect to excurved, leafy toward base, filiform.

arching or erect, leafy, nearly terete, multiribbed, slender.

overtopped by scape;

blades filiform, distally flattened, channeled, tapering, to 1 mm wide, margins strongly involute, apex blunt.

spikelet clusters 1–3, laterals widely spaced, all narrowly turbinate, ellipsoid, or ovoid; leafy bracts setaceous, overtopping proximal clusters, often overtopped by terminal ones.

spikelet clusters 2–6, mostly widely spaced;

clusters dense, hemispheric to mostly spheroid, 0.5–1 cm thick.

erect or ascending, redbrown, lanciform, mostly 4.5–5 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales lanceolate, (3–)4–4.5 mm, apex acute, apiculate.

dark redbrown to dark brown, lanceovoid, (2–)2.5–3.5(–4) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales elliptic, 2–3 mm, apex acute, midrib shortexcurrent or not.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6, reaching tubercle tip, retrorsely barbellate.

2–3(–5) per spikelet;

stipe and receptacle 0.1–0.2(–0.3) mm, setose;

body brown with pale glassy center, narrowly obovoidellipsoid, lenticular, 1.2–1.5 mm, margins narrow, flowing to tubercle;

surfaces very finely lined longitudinally, transversely with wavy lines of tiny pits;

tubercle narrowly triangular or slightly concavesided, flattened, 0.7–1.2(–1.5) mm.

1 per spikelet, 2.5–3 mm;

body pale brown with light center, lenticular, obovoid distal to stipe, 1.1–1.5 × 0.9–1.1 mm, margins pale, wirelike, surfaces slick;

tubercle triangularsubulate, 0.9–1.2(–1.5) mm, at least 0.5 mm wide at base.

leaves overtopped by culm;

blades linear, proximally flattened, 1–3 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.