Flora of North America species comparison

filiform, leafy at base, wiry.

erect or spreadingarching, linearfiliform, terete, leafy toward base.

ascending to erect;

blades filiform, nearly terete, or channeled, sometimes compressed, nearly reaching distal inflorescence or much shorter, 0.2–0.3 mm thick, apex subulate.

overtopped by culm;

blades ascending, filiform, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, then channeled, apex trigonous, setaceous.

spikelet clusters 2–6, simple or reduced to 1 spikelet, branches ascending to divaricate or reflexed; leafy bracts single per cluster, filiform, setaceous, with clusters appearing lateral to bracts.

spikelet clusters 1–2(–4), dense(–open), narrowly to broadly turbinate;

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

pale redbrown, ellipsoidlanceoloid, 5–6(–8) mm, apex acute to acuminate;

fertile scales oblongelliptic, convex, acuminate, 3.5–5 mm, apex broadly acute, midrib forming apiculus.

brownish, lanceellipsoid to fusiform, 2–2.5(–3) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly elliptic, 1.5 mm, apex narrowly rounded to broadly acute, apiculate, convexcupulate, midrib narrow, shortexcurrent or included.

perianth bristles 6, reaching to or slightly past tubercle base, increasingly plumose from middle to base.

perianth absent.

1–3 per spikelet, (2.5–)2.7–3(–3.4) mm;

body light brown to brown, ellipsoidobovoid, distally conspicuously necked, tumidly lenticular, 1.7–2.5 × 1.5–1.8 mm;

surfaces smooth or minutely transversely rugulose;

tubercle conicsubulate, 0.5–0.7 mm, base flaring.

1–3 or more per spikelet, (0.6–)0.7–0.9(–1) mm;

body pale, glassy, obovoidlenticular, 0.6–0.7 × 0.4–0.5 mm, margins narrow, wirelike;

surfaces finely striate, very finely reticulate;

tubercle button depressedtriangular or patelliform, 0.1–0.15 mm, apiculate.