Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect to excurved, lax, filiform, leafy, ± terete.

overtopped by culm;

blades linear to filiform, channeled, 0.3–0.5 mm wide, margins deeply involute, apex setaceous.

exceeded by culm, ascending;

blades filiform, ± terete, margins strongly involute, apex trigonous, sulcate, tapering.

spikelet clusters 1–2(–3), dense to open, narrowly to broadly turbinate;

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

spikelet clusters mostly 2–3, sparse to dense, oblong to broadly or narrowly turbinate; leafy bracts setaceous, exceeding clusters.

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.

pale redbrown, lanceoloid, 3–3.5 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales mostly elliptic, 2–2.5 mm, apex acute, sometimes apiculate.

perianth absent.

bristles mere nubs or 1–2, to 0.3 mm.

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.

mostly 2 per spikelet, 1.5–1.6 mm;

body redbrown with pale center, lenticular, broadly obovoid to orbicular, margins pale, narrow, flowing to tubercle;

surfaces smoothish, or faintly cancellate;

tubercle flattened, triangularsubulate, 0.3–0.5 mm.