Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect to excurved, filiform, leafy, ± terete.

overtopped by culm;

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

shorter than culm;

blades ascending, filiform, proximally to 1.5(–2)mm wide, apex trigonous, tapering, setaceous.

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

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

lateral spikelet clusters (0–)1–2, distant, terminal cluster ellipsoid to broadly turbinate or hemispheric, branches ascending; leafy bracts setaceous, overtopping 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.

red-brown to deep brown, lanceoloid, (4–)5–6(–7) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales lanceolate, 4–5(–6) mm, apex acuminate, midrib often excurrent as awn.

perianth absent.

bristles 5–6, longest reaching at least past tubercle base, mostly to tip or beyond, 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.

2(–3) per spikelet, (2.3–)2.5–2.6(–3) mm with pedicellar joint, receptacle, and tubercle;

body lustrous, pale brown to deep brown, obovoid to ellipsoid, lenticular, 1–1.5 × 1 mm, margins narrow, flowing to tubercle;

surfaces longitudinally finely lined, transversely very finely ridged with wavy rows of very narrow, vertical lattices, sometimes also with lines of shallow pits;

tubercle triangularsubulate, (0.7–)1–1.3(–1.5) mm, base lunate, margins setulose proximally.