Flora of North America species comparison

erect to excurved, leafy, obscurely trigonous, slender.

lax, leafy, mostly excurved, slender.

spreading to ascending, shorter than culm, crowded toward culm base;

blades linear, proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, gradually involute, apically 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, dense to open, mostly irregularly turbinate;

peduncles ascending, branches spreading to erect, ultimate branches with many spikelets; leafy bracts setaceoustipped, usually exceeding all clusters, or at least all but the distal.

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

light redbrown or brown, broadly ellipsoid to lanceoloid, 3–4 mm, apex acute to acuminate;

fertile scales ovate to obovate or suborbiculate, 2–3.5 mm apex acute to rounded or emarginate, midrib included or exserted as mucro.

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, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.

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

mostly 1 per spikelet, 2–2.5 mm, body dark brown, obovoid to subglobose, tumid or lenticular, 1.5–1.7 mm, transversely finely rugose to nearly level, intervals with very small, pitlike alveoli.

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.