Flora of North America species comparison

erect to excurved, filiform, leafy, ± terete.

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

shorter than culm;

blades ascending, filiform, proximally to 1.5(–2)mm wide, apex trigonous, tapering, 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.

lateral spikelet clusters (0–)1–2, distant, terminal cluster ellipsoid to broadly turbinate or hemispheric, branches ascending; leafy bracts setaceous, overtopping clusters.

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

primary leafy bracts linear, stiff, exceeding clusters.

red-brown to deep brown, lanceoloid, (4–)5–6(–7) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales lanceolate, 4–5(–6) mm, apex acuminate, midrib often excurrent as awn.

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.

bristles 5–6, longest reaching at least past tubercle base, mostly to tip or beyond, antrorsely barbellate.

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

2(–3) per spikelet, (2.3–)2.5–2.6(–3) mm with pedicellar joint, receptacle, and tubercle;

body lustrous, pale brown to deep brown, obovoid to ellipsoid, lenticular, 1–1.5 × 1 mm, margins narrow, flowing to tubercle;

surfaces longitudinally finely lined, transversely very finely ridged with wavy rows of very narrow, vertical lattices, sometimes also with lines of shallow pits;

tubercle triangularsubulate, (0.7–)1–1.3(–1.5) mm, base lunate, margins setulose proximally.

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.