Flora of North America species comparison

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

lax, leafy, mostly excurved, slender.

shorter than culms;

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

shorter than culm;

blades ascending, narrowly linear, proximally flat, 2–4(–5) mm wide, apex trigonous, short-subulate, tapering.

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

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

spikelet clusters 3–7(–10), dense, all but most distal widely spaced, broadly turbinate to ovate or hemispheric.

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.

light red-brown, lanciform, 5 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales lanceolate, 4–4.5 mm, apex acuminate, midrib excurrent as awn.

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

bristles 6, reaching past tubercle base, usually to or slightly past its tip, antrorsely barbellate.

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.

2(–4) per spikelet;

stipe and receptacle curled-setose, (0.5–)0.6–08(–1) mm;

body glossy, brown with pale center, narrowly obovoid-lenticular, 1.2–1.5 mm, surfaces minutely striate, sometimes transversely minutely rugulose with wavy rows of dark minute dots;

margins narrow, strong, flowing to tubercle;

tubercle narrowly triangular, slightly concave-sided, flattened, setulose-ciliate, 0.7–1.1 mm.