Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect to arching-ascending, leafy, wand-like.

overtopped by culm;

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

mostly basal, few and increasingly distant upculm, shorter than scape;

blades narrowly linear, concave proximally, (1–)2–3 mm wide, tapering and increasingly involute-sulcate proximally, margins scabrid, apex triquetrous, tip narrow but blunt.

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

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

clusters 1(–2), if 2 then close together, dense, broadly turbinate to hemispheric;

primary leafy bracts linear, stiff, exceeding clusters.

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.

light brown, narrowly lanceoloid, 8–10 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales lanceolate, convex, (6–)7–8 mm, apex narrowly acute, low midrib short-excurrent or not.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6, excurved, plumose from base to midbristle, 5–7.5 mm, antrorsely barbellate to tip.

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, 2.3–2.6 × 1.1–1.2 mm;

body brown, short-stipitate, tumidly obovoid, subterete, 1.8–2 mm, margin low, broad;

surfaces interruptedly transversely wavy-rugulose;

tubercle broadly and concavely conic, 0.5–0.7 mm high, base shallowly 2-lobed, discoid, abruptly narrowed to blunt tip.