Flora of North America species comparison

erect, trigonous, multiribbed, rather stiff.

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

overtopped by scape;

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

spikelet clusters 1–3, turbinate to hemispheric, 1.5–3 cm wide; subtending leafy bracts mostly exceeded by distal compound.

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

pale brown to nearly white, fusiform, 4–5(–7) mm, apex narrowly acute;

fertile scales elliptic, 3.5–4 mm, apex narrowly acute, midrib excurrent as mucro.

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

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

perianth bristles (15–)18–20, reaching tubercle tip, retrorsely barbellate.

perianth absent.

1 per spikelet, 2.5–3.2 mm;

body brown with pale center, obovoid distal to short stipe, lenticular, 1.7–2.2 × 0.8–1.5, margins narrow, wirelike, flowing into tubercle edges;

tubercle flat, narrowly triangular-subulate, 0.8–1 mm.

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.

leaves overtopped by culm;

blades narrowly linear, proximally flat, (1.5–)2–3.5 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.