Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect to arching, leafy, trigonous, slender, firm.

overtopped by culm;

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

overtopped by culms;

blades linear, proximally flat, 3–7 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 2–6, sparse, widely spaced, turbinate;

peduncles and branches ascending; leafy bracts exceeding proximal 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.

light redbrown, ovoid to ellipsoid, (4–)5–8(–9) mm, apex acute or acuminate;

fertile scales ovate, (5.5–)6–6.5(–7) mm, midrib included or shortexcurrent.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6(–8), mostly reaching from fruit midbody to tubercle base, 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, (3.5–)4–5 mm;

body dark brown to mahogany or nearly black, broadly obovoid, tumid, nearly smooth, buttressed to tubercle;

tubercle lowconic, rimmed, 0.7(–1) mm, apex apiculate.