Flora of North America species comparison

erect or excurved, filiform to linear.

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

erect or excurved, shorter than scape;

blades filiform to linear, to 1.5 mm wide, margins involute, apex trigonous, tapering.

slightly to much exceeded by culm;

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

spikelet clusters 1–several, dense or sparse, when several, either widely spaced or close together, if widely spaced then ovoid to hemispheric, if close together then lobed ellipse or cylinder; leafy bracts filiform, setaceous, overtopping each cluster.

terminal;

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

light redbrown to deep brown, broadly fusiform to ovoid, (2.5–)3.5–4 mm, apex acute to acuminate;

fertile scale broadly ovate, strongly convex, (1.5–)2–3 mm, apex acuminate to mucronate, midrib excurrent or not.

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.

perianth bristles 6, plumose, reaching at least to fruit midbody, often to tubercle tip.

bristles vestigial or obsolete.

1(–2) per spikelet, (1.5–)2–2.5 mm;

body redbrown or brown, tumidly obovoid or ellipsoid, sometimes obscurely lenticular, (1.2–)1.3–1.8(–2) × 1–1.5 mm;

surfaces interruptedly crossrugulose;

tubercle narrowly to broadly conic, mostly 0.3–0.5 mm, base flaring, round or indistinctly 2lobed.

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.