Flora of North America species comparison

erect or ascending, slender, leafy proximal to middle, somewhat stiff.

erect or excurved, filiform to linear.

overtopped by culm;

blades ascending, ± filiform, proximally flat or slightly concave, to 1 mm wide, apex narrowing, trigonous, abruptly blunt.

erect or excurved, shorter than scape;

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

spikelet clusters 1–2, if 2 then close together, dense, broadly turbinate to hemispheric or even globose;

primary leafy bract setaceous, 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.

redbrown, ovoid, 2–2.5(–4) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly ovate, 1.5–1.9(–2) mm, apex acute to acuminate, midrib excurrent as awn to 0.5 mm.

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.

bristles 6, some reaching to apex of fruit body.

perianth bristles 6, plumose, reaching at least to fruit midbody, often to tubercle tip.

2–3 per spikelet, 1–1.2(–1.4) mm;

body dull dark brown with paler brown center, lenticular, broadly obovoid to broadly ellipsoid, 1 × 0.8 mm, margins narrow, flowing to tubercle;

tubercle nearly equilaterally triangular, 0.2–0.3 mm.

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.