Flora of North America species comparison

filiform, leafy at base, wiry.

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

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 linear to filiform, channeled, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, apex 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(–3), dense to open, narrowly to broadly turbinate;

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

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 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.

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.