Flora of North America species comparison

arching or erect, leafy-based, distally wandlike, terete, multiribbed.

erect, slender, leafy-based, trigonous, several-ribbed.

ascending to spreading, overtopped by scape;

blades linear, proximally flat, 2.5–5 mm wide, apex subulate, trigonous.

spreading to erect, overtopped by culm;

blades narrowly linear, proximally flattened, 0.5–3 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.

terminal, headlike clusters of spikelets, clusters dense, leafy-involucrate;

involucral bracts several, spreading to downcurved, longest 6–13 cm × 5–10 mm, mostly white to midbract, then green, abruptly narrowly linear.

terminal, solitary, headlike, dense, white, leafy-involucrate;

involucral bracts several, flaring to recurved, white from broadened base nearly to median, then green to tapered tip, longer bracts 13 cm × 2–7 mm.

white, ovoid, 5–7 mm;

fertile scales boatshaped, sharply curved-keeled, 5 mm, apex acute.

white, ovoid, 5–7 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales many, boatshaped, sharply curvedkeeled, 3–4(–5) mm, apex acute or blunt.

perianth absent.

perianth absent.

several per spikelet, 1.5–2 mm;

body yellowish to deep brown, tumidly lenticular, broadly obovoid to orbicular or oblate, 1.5 mm, widest at or toward midbody, margins flowing to tubercle;

surfaces with many fine rows of vertical shallow lattices, their contiguous ends making transverse rows of papillae;

tubercle crescent-based, depressed-triangular, 0.5 mm, apex acute.

several per spikelet, 1.5–1.7(–2) mm;

body yellow to mahogany, broadly pyriformobovoid, tumidly lenticular, 1 × 0.5–0.7 mm, widest at apex, margins thickened, interrupted at base of tubercle;

surfaces transversely undulaterugose, ridges contiguous, of shortlinear papillae;

tubercle broadly triangular, 0.5–0.6 mm, graycrustaceous, apex short acuminate.

= 12.

= 12.