Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect or curved, leafy, filiform, angularly fewribbed.

overtopped by culm;

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

ascending-excurved, overtopped by culm;

blades filiform, involute, apex setaceous.

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 1–2(–3), often sparse, ellipsoid or narrowly turbinate, less than 1 cm wide; subtending foliaceous bracts exceeding compounds.

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.

erect or ascending, pale redbrown to brown, fusiform, 6–7 mm;

fertile scales elliptic, 4 mm, apex rounded or acute, midrib shortexcurrent or not.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6, overtopping tubercle base, mostly retrorsely barbellate, sometimes smooth [forma laeviseta (E.

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.

1–4(–5) per spikelet, 2.5–3 mm;

body pale brown, slender stipitate, ellipsoid, lenticular, 1.5–2 × 0.8–1 mm;

surfaces longitudinally minutely striate, obscurely transversely lowrugose, dotted;

tubercle narrowly triangularsubulate, flattened, 0.8–1.7 mm.

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) Fernald].