Flora of North America species comparison

erect or spreadingarching, linearfiliform, terete, leafy toward base.

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

overtopped by culm;

blades ascending, filiform, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, then channeled, apex trigonous, setaceous.

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.

spikelet clusters 1–2(–4), dense(–open), narrowly to broadly turbinate;

branches capillary, variously elongate; leafy bracts setaceous, proximal exceeding clusters.

terminal;

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

bracts strongly ciliate distally;

longer leafy bracts exceeding cluster.

brownish, lanceellipsoid to fusiform, 2–2.5(–3) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly elliptic, 1.5 mm, apex narrowly rounded to broadly acute, apiculate, convexcupulate, midrib narrow, shortexcurrent or included.

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.

perianth absent.

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

1–3 or more per spikelet, (0.6–)0.7–0.9(–1) mm;

body pale, glassy, obovoidlenticular, 0.6–0.7 × 0.4–0.5 mm, margins narrow, wirelike;

surfaces finely striate, very finely reticulate;

tubercle button depressedtriangular or patelliform, 0.1–0.15 mm, apiculate.

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.