Flora of North America species comparison

erect, trigonous, multiribbed, rather stiff.

erect or excurved, linear, leafy, trigonous, slender.

slightly to much exceeded by culm;

blades ascending, narrowly linear, proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, apex trigonous, tapering gradually, setaceous.

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

terminal;

spikelet single, terminal cluster of spikelets crowded, hemispheric, 2.5 cm wide; leafy bracts linearsetaceous, much exceeding cluster.

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.

whitish to tan, narrowly lanceoloid, (3.5–)4–5.5 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales lanceolate, 3.5–4(–4.5) mm, apex narrowly acute, minutely awned or apiculate.

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

bristles vestigial or obsolete.

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 per spikelet, (1.9–)2–2.3 mm;

body brown with pale center, lenticular, broadly ellipsoid, 1.5–2 × 1.5 mm, margins flowing to tubercle;

surfaces longitudinally finely striate;

tubercle depressedtriangular, 0.2–0.3(–0.4) mm.

leaves overtopped by culm;

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