Flora of North America species comparison

erect to excurved, leafybased, filiform.

erect to arching-ascending, leafy, wand-like.

shorter than culm;

blades ascending to excurved, filiform, proximally to 1 mm wide, margins involute, apex trigonous, subulate, tapering.

mostly basal, few and increasingly distant upculm, shorter than scape;

blades narrowly linear, concave proximally, (1–)2–3 mm wide, tapering and increasingly involute-sulcate proximally, margins scabrid, apex triquetrous, tip narrow but blunt.

spikelet clusters 1–3, laterals 0–2, turbinate, rarely hemispheric; leafy bracts setaceous, overtopping inflorescence.

clusters 1(–2), if 2 then close together, dense, broadly turbinate to hemispheric;

primary leafy bracts linear, stiff, exceeding clusters.

redbrown, narrowly lanceoloid, 5–7 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales lanceolate, 3.5–5 mm, apex acute, mucronate.

light brown, narrowly lanceoloid, 8–10 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales lanceolate, convex, (6–)7–8 mm, apex narrowly acute, low midrib short-excurrent or not.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6, excurved, plumose from base to midbristle, 5–7.5 mm, antrorsely barbellate to tip.

2(–5) per spikelet, (1.7–)2–2.2 mm;

body on short, setulose receptacular stipe, brown with pale center, obovoidlenticular, 0.8–1.1 mm, surfaces very finely longitudinally lined, sometimes faintly reticulatecancellate;

tubercle triangular subulate, 0.7–0.9 mm, base lunate, edges setulose.

1–2 per spikelet, 2.3–2.6 × 1.1–1.2 mm;

body brown, short-stipitate, tumidly obovoid, subterete, 1.8–2 mm, margin low, broad;

surfaces interruptedly transversely wavy-rugulose;

tubercle broadly and concavely conic, 0.5–0.7 mm high, base shallowly 2-lobed, discoid, abruptly narrowed to blunt tip.