Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect, slender, leafy-based, trigonous, several-ribbed.

slightly to much exceeded by culm;

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

spreading to erect, overtopped by culm;

blades narrowly linear, proximally flattened, 0.5–3 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.

terminal;

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

terminal, solitary, headlike, dense, white, leafy-involucrate;

involucral bracts several, flaring to recurved, white from broadened base nearly to median, then green to tapered tip, longer bracts 13 cm × 2–7 mm.

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.

white, ovoid, 5–7 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales many, boatshaped, sharply curvedkeeled, 3–4(–5) mm, apex acute or blunt.

bristles vestigial or obsolete.

perianth absent.

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.

several per spikelet, 1.5–1.7(–2) mm;

body yellow to mahogany, broadly pyriformobovoid, tumidly lenticular, 1 × 0.5–0.7 mm, widest at apex, margins thickened, interrupted at base of tubercle;

surfaces transversely undulaterugose, ridges contiguous, of shortlinear papillae;

tubercle broadly triangular, 0.5–0.6 mm, graycrustaceous, apex short acuminate.

= 12.