Flora of North America species comparison

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

lax, often excurved, slender, ± terete or trigonous.

overtopped by culm;

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

ascending, exceeded by culm;

blades linear, proximally flat, 1.5–2.5 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.

clusters 3–4, widely spaced, narrowly, compactly, or diffusely turbinate; 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.

deep redbrown, ovoid to broadly ellipsoid, 2–3 mm, apex acute to acuminate;

fertile scales broadly elliptic to obovate or orbiculate, 1.4–2(–2.5) mm, apex rounded to notched, midrib shortexcurrent.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 0–3, vestigial when present.

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.

2–4 per spikelet, 1.5 mm;

body pale brown to brown, strongly flattened, orbicular to broadly obovoid, 1–1.3 × 0.9–1.2 mm, surfaces sharply transversely wavyrugose, intervals finely vertically striate with rows of linearrectangular alveolae;

tubercle depressed, triangular, flattened, 0.2–0.3 mm, base lunate.