Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect or ascending, leafy, trigonous, slender.

overtopped by culm;

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

all exceeded by culm;

basal blades spreading, often curled, distal longer, all proximally flat, 3–5 mm wide, apex trigonous, subulately 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 3–5, proximalmost distant, longest pedunculate, fascicles broadly turbinate to hemispheric; leafy bracts of distal groups mostly exceeded by inflorescence.

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.

lanceovoid, (3.5–)4–5 mm;

fertile scales broadly ovate to ± orbiculate, cupulate, rounded, 3 mm, apex apiculate to cuspidate, midrib excurrent.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6, overtopping tubercle (or at least its 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.

1–3 per spikelet, 2.3–3 mm;

body brown, strongly compressed proximally, biconvex distally, broadly obovoid, 1.8–2.2 × 1.5 mm;

surfaces strongly transversely rugose, intervals with rows of narrow, vertical alveolae;

tubercle triangular, flat, 1 mm, base lunate, capping fruit apex, apiculate.