Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect to arching or spreading, leafy, ± filiform, ± terete, stiff to rather lax.

overtopped by culm;

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

exceeded by culm;

blades linearfiliform, proximally shallowly concave, 1 mm, apex tapering, trigonous, blunt or broadly acute.

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, mostly compact, turbinate to hemispheric; leafy bracts setaceous, exceeding spikelet 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.

dark redbrown, ovoid, 2–3 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales obovate, 1.5–1.7(–2) mm, apex broadly rounded or retuse, midrib excurrent as cusp or mucro to 0.5 mm.

perianth absent.

bristles 6 or vestigial, rarely reaching fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.

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.

1–2 per spikelet,1.7–2 mm;

body brown with large pale center, lenticular, broadly obovoid to ± orbicular, 1.2–1.5 × 1.4–1.6 mm;

tubercle flat, triangular, concave-sided, 0.4–0.6 mm, sometimes apiculate.