Flora of North America species comparison

erect or excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender, firm.

erect to curved, leafy, obscurely trigonous to nearly terete, few ribbed, slender.

shorter than culms;

blades spreading to ascending, linear, proximally flat, 2–4 mm wide, apex involute, then trigonous, subulate.

spikelet clusters 1–4, loose to dense, broadly turbinate, lobed or hemispheric;

peduncles and branches ascending; leafy bracts exceeding proximal, sometimes distal, clusters.

clusters 1 or 2–3, then widely spaced, narrowly turbinate to hemispheric, 1.5–2.5 cm wide; subtending leafy bracts often exceeded by distal cluster.

light redbrown, ellipsoid or narrowly ovoid, 4–5 mm, apex acute to acuminate;

fertile scales broadly ovate, 3.5–4.5 mm, apex acute or acuminate, apiculate.

pale brown to nearly white, ellipsoid, 3.5–5.5 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales elliptic, 3–3.5(–4) mm, apex acute or acuminate, midrib excurrent as mucro.

perianth bristles mostly 6, reaching from fruit midbody to tubercle tip or beyond, antrorsely barbellate.

perianth bristles 10–12, slightly overtopping tubercle, retrorsely barbellate or rarely smooth, base often setose.

1(–2) per spikelet, 2.5–3 mm;

body dark brown, broadly, tumidly obovoid, 2–2.5 × 2–2.5 mm, apically buttressed to tubercle;

surfaces finely transversely rugulose or nearly level, with fine transverse rows of pits or low papillae, often appearing nearly smooth;

tubercle lowconic, 0.4–0.6 mm, apiculate.

1(–2) per spikelet, (2.3–)2.5–3 mm;

body pale brown with paler center, stipitateobovoid, lenticular, 1.5–1.8(–2) × 0.9–1.2 mm;

surfaces transversely striate, relatively smooth, rim narrow, flowing to tubercle base;

tubercle narrowly triangularsubulate, 0.5–1.2 mm.

leaves mostly overtopped by culm;

blades narrowly linear to filiform, proximally flat, 0.5–1.5 mm, apex tapering, trigonous.