Flora of North America species comparison

erect to spreading-ascending, leafybased, trigonous or compressed, ribbed.

ascending-excurved, leafy, ± terete, slender.

exceeded by scape;

blades narrowly linear to filiform, 0.2–2 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.

ascending, overtopped by culm;

blades narrowly linear, proximally flat, 2–3 mm wide, apex trigonous, tapering.

terminal, solitary, headlike, dense, white, leafyinvolucrate, hemispheric to globose, 0.5–1.5 cm wide;

involucral bracts (0–)1–4, ascending to recurved, green, (0.7–)2–5(–6) cm × 0.2–2 mm.

spikelet clusters (1–)2–3, widely spaced, open to dense, broadly to narrowly turbinate, branches ascending to slightly spreading, capillary; leafy bracts setaceous-tipped, overtopping all but distal clusters.

white, ovoid, 5–7 mm;

fertile scales several, boat-shaped, 2.5–3.5 mm, keel curved, not sharp.

light red-brown, ovoid, 3.5–5 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales ovate, 2.5–3.5 mm, apex acute, midrib excurrent as cusp or mucro.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6, reaching at most 2/3 length of fruit body, antrorsely barbellate.

0.8–1 mm;

body yellow to near black, broadly pyriform-obovoid, tumidly lenticular, 0.5–0.8 × 0.5–0.8 mm, margin narrow, flowing into tubercle;

surfaces transversely sharply wavyrugose, ridges bordered by rows of fine, linear, vertical lattices;

tubercle depressedtriangular, lunate-based, shortbeaked 0.2(–0.3) mm, gray-crustaceous.

1–4(–5) per spikelet, 2 mm;

body brown, strongly compressed, obovoid-ellipsoid, 1.4–1.6 × 1–1.2 mm, margins flowing to tubercle;

surfaces finely transversely rugose, intervals with narrow vertical alveolae;

tubercle flat, low-triangular, 0.2–0.3(–0.5) mm.