Flora of North America species comparison

erect with arching tops, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender.

erect to excurved, leafybased, filiform.

overtopped by inflorescence;

blades linear, proximally flat, 3–5 mm wide, apex trigonous, subulate, tapering.

shorter than culm;

blades ascending to excurved, filiform, proximally to 1 mm wide, margins involute, apex trigonous, subulate, tapering.

spikelet clusters mostly 4–6, various in shape and crowding, narrowly to broadly turbinate;

peduncles erect, branches slender, ascending; leafy bracts exceeding all but most distal clusters.

spikelet clusters 1–3, laterals 0–2, turbinate, rarely hemispheric; leafy bracts setaceous, overtopping inflorescence.

redbrown, broadly ellipsoid, (1.5–)2–3(–3.5) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly ovate, 2–3 mm, midrib excurrent as apiculus or awn.

redbrown, narrowly lanceoloid, 5–7 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales lanceolate, 3.5–5 mm, apex acute, mucronate.

perianth bristles 6, mostly spreading, usually exceeding tubercle, antrorsely barbellate.

perianth absent.

2–3(–4) per spikelet, 1.5(–1.7) mm;

body pale brown to brown, strongly flattened, obovoidorbicular, 1–1.2 × 0.8–1.1;

surfaces transversely wavyrugose, intervals vertically striate with very narrowly rectangular alveolae;

tubercle flat, triangular or concavely triangular, 0.3–0.5(–0.7) mm.

2(–5) per spikelet, (1.7–)2–2.2 mm;

body on short, setulose receptacular stipe, brown with pale center, obovoidlenticular, 0.8–1.1 mm, surfaces very finely longitudinally lined, sometimes faintly reticulatecancellate;

tubercle triangular subulate, 0.7–0.9 mm, base lunate, edges setulose.