Flora of North America species comparison

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

lax, erect to excurved, leafy toward base, filiform.

ascending to spreading, overtopped by scape;

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

overtopped by scape;

blades filiform, distally flattened, channeled, tapering, to 1 mm wide, margins strongly involute, apex blunt.

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.

spikelet clusters 1–3, laterals widely spaced, all narrowly turbinate, ellipsoid, or ovoid; leafy bracts setaceous, overtopping proximal clusters, often overtopped by terminal ones.

white, ovoid, 5–7 mm;

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

erect or ascending, redbrown, lanciform, mostly 4.5–5 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales lanceolate, (3–)4–4.5 mm, apex acute, apiculate.

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.

2–3(–5) per spikelet;

stipe and receptacle 0.1–0.2(–0.3) mm, setose;

body brown with pale glassy center, narrowly obovoidellipsoid, lenticular, 1.2–1.5 mm, margins narrow, flowing to tubercle;

surfaces very finely lined longitudinally, transversely with wavy lines of tiny pits;

tubercle narrowly triangular or slightly concavesided, flattened, 0.7–1.2(–1.5) mm.

= 12.