Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect or excurved, lax, leafy, slender to wiry.

overtopped by culm;

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

overtopped by culm;

basal leaves spreading, twisted, distal longer, erect or ascending;

blades proximally flat, 1–3 mm wide, apex trigonous, subulate, 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 1–4, proximalmost widely spaced, spikelets elongate, open, turbinate or compactlobed hemispheric;

branches erect to ascending; leafy bracts setaceous, exceeding proximal clusters, exceeded by distal 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.

mostly dark brown to brown, globose to broadly ovoid, (2–)2.5–3(–4) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly ovate to orbiculate, 1.7–2.3 mm, apex obtuse to rounded or emarginate, midrib mostly included, sometimes excurrent as apiculus.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6 or less, antrorsely barbellate, of various lengths.

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.

1–3 per spikelet, 1.5–1–8 mm (–2 mm in var. pinetorum);

body tumidly biconvex;

surfaces transversely wavyrugose, intervals of vertically rectangular alveolae or transverserugosity indistinct, surface isodiametrically alveolate or cancellate;

tubercle shortconic to patelliformapiculate.