Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect, leafybased, wandlike, nearly terete, multiribbed.

overtopped by culm;

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

ascending or erect, longest nearly equaling culm;

principal blades linear, involutecylindric, to 3 mm wide, apex tapering, subulate.

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

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

terminal, heads 1–4, dense, macelike, 1–1.5 mm thick;

involucral bracts leafy, proximalmost overtopping 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.

greenish, lanceovoid, 5–6 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales boat-shaped, 5 mm, apex acute to shortacuminate, midrib slightly excurrent or not.

perianth absent.

perianth bristles 6, exceeding fruit body, 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 per spikelet, 6–8(–8.7) mm;

body pale greenbrown, laterally compressed, obcordiform, 2.5–3(–4) mm, margins thick, rounded, not crimped, apex barely exserted, setulose, surfaces nearly plane, minutely cancellate (latticed);

tubercle (style base) linear, angled, 4–6 mm, much narrower than fruit summit, setulose.