Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect or excurved, filiform to linear.

overtopped by culm;

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

erect or excurved, shorter than scape;

blades filiform to linear, to 1.5 mm wide, margins involute, apex trigonous, tapering.

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

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

spikelet clusters 1–several, dense or sparse, when several, either widely spaced or close together, if widely spaced then ovoid to hemispheric, if close together then lobed ellipse or cylinder; leafy bracts filiform, setaceous, overtopping each 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.

light redbrown to deep brown, broadly fusiform to ovoid, (2.5–)3.5–4 mm, apex acute to acuminate;

fertile scale broadly ovate, strongly convex, (1.5–)2–3 mm, apex acuminate to mucronate, midrib excurrent or not.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6, plumose, reaching at least to fruit midbody, often to tubercle 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, (1.5–)2–2.5 mm;

body redbrown or brown, tumidly obovoid or ellipsoid, sometimes obscurely lenticular, (1.2–)1.3–1.8(–2) × 1–1.5 mm;

surfaces interruptedly crossrugulose;

tubercle narrowly to broadly conic, mostly 0.3–0.5 mm, base flaring, round or indistinctly 2lobed.