Flora of North America species comparison

arching or erect, leafy, nearly terete, multiribbed, slender.

erect or arching, leafy toward base, filiform, terete, wiry.

overtopped by culm;

blades linear to filiform, channeled, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, apex setaceous.

spikelet clusters 2–6, mostly widely spaced;

clusters dense, hemispheric to mostly spheroid, 0.5–1 cm thick.

spikelet clusters 1–2(–3), dense to open, narrowly to broadly turbinate;

branches capillary, variously elongate; leafy bracts setaceous, equaling or exceeding clusters.

dark redbrown to dark brown, lanceovoid, (2–)2.5–3.5(–4) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales elliptic, 2–3 mm, apex acute, midrib shortexcurrent or not.

variously brown, ellipsoid, 2–3 mm, apex sharply acute;

fertile scales ovate to nearly orbiculate, rounded, 1.2–1.8 mm, apiculate, convexcupulate, midrib slender, mostly included.

perianth bristles 6, reaching tubercle tip, retrorsely barbellate.

perianth absent.

1 per spikelet, 2.5–3 mm;

body pale brown with light center, lenticular, obovoid distal to stipe, 1.1–1.5 × 0.9–1.1 mm, margins pale, wirelike, surfaces slick;

tubercle triangularsubulate, 0.9–1.2(–1.5) mm, at least 0.5 mm wide at base.

2–3 per spikelet, 0.7–0.9(–1) mm;

body pale, obovoid-lenticular, (0.5–)0.6–0.9 × 0.4–0.5 mm, margin wirelike;

surfaces transversely rugulose;

tubercle buttonlike, depressed triangular, 0.05–0.1 mm, base lunate atop rounded fruit body.

leaves overtopped by culm;

blades linear, proximally flattened, 1–3 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.