Flora of North America species comparison

erect, trigonous, multiribbed, rather stiff.

erect to arching-ascending, leafy, wand-like.

mostly basal, few and increasingly distant upculm, shorter than scape;

blades narrowly linear, concave proximally, (1–)2–3 mm wide, tapering and increasingly involute-sulcate proximally, margins scabrid, apex triquetrous, tip narrow but blunt.

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

clusters 1(–2), if 2 then close together, dense, broadly turbinate to hemispheric;

primary leafy bracts linear, stiff, exceeding clusters.

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.

light brown, narrowly lanceoloid, 8–10 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales lanceolate, convex, (6–)7–8 mm, apex narrowly acute, low midrib short-excurrent or not.

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

perianth bristles 6, excurved, plumose from base to midbristle, 5–7.5 mm, antrorsely barbellate to tip.

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.

1–2 per spikelet, 2.3–2.6 × 1.1–1.2 mm;

body brown, short-stipitate, tumidly obovoid, subterete, 1.8–2 mm, margin low, broad;

surfaces interruptedly transversely wavy-rugulose;

tubercle broadly and concavely conic, 0.5–0.7 mm high, base shallowly 2-lobed, discoid, abruptly narrowed to blunt tip.

leaves overtopped by culm;

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