Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect or ascending, slender, leafy proximal to middle, somewhat stiff.

overtopped by culm;

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

overtopped by culm;

blades ascending, ± filiform, proximally flat or slightly concave, to 1 mm wide, apex narrowing, trigonous, abruptly blunt.

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, if 2 then close together, dense, broadly turbinate to hemispheric or even globose;

primary leafy bract 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.

redbrown, ovoid, 2–2.5(–4) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly ovate, 1.5–1.9(–2) mm, apex acute to acuminate, midrib excurrent as awn to 0.5 mm.

perianth absent.

bristles 6, some reaching to apex of fruit body.

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.

2–3 per spikelet, 1–1.2(–1.4) mm;

body dull dark brown with paler brown center, lenticular, broadly obovoid to broadly ellipsoid, 1 × 0.8 mm, margins narrow, flowing to tubercle;

tubercle nearly equilaterally triangular, 0.2–0.3 mm.