Flora of North America species comparison

erect to ascending, narrowly linear, wandlike, terete, leafy proximal to middle.

erect or ascending, terete to obscurely trigonous, multiribbed, densely leafybased, slender, stiff, papillose to scabridpuberulent.

erect to ascending;

blades proximally flat, 2.5–3.5 mm wide, apex tapering, tip abruptly blunt.

forming strong rosette, distal widely spaced, much exceeded by scape;

basal leaf blades shortlinear, flat, 4–6 mm wide, culm leaf blades narrower, longer, all ciliate, apex bluntly acute.

terminal, cluster of spikelets crowded, broadly turbinate to hemispheric, to 1.5 cm wide; leafy bracts linearsetaceous, slightly exceeding cluster.

terminal;

spikelet cluster 1, crowded, hemispheric, often lobed, to 2 cm wide;

bracts strongly ciliate distally;

longer leafy bracts exceeding cluster.

orangebrown, lancefusiform, 6–7 mm, apex acuminate;

fertile scales lanceovate, 4–5 mm, apex acuminate with excurved awn to 1 mm.

dark redbrown, ovoid, 4–5(–6) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales broadly ovate, 4–4.5 mm, apex blunt, sometimes apiculate or with mucro to 1 mm, midrib scabrid.

bristles 3–4, some reaching tubercle tip, antrorsely barbellate.

bristles 6, some vestigial, none reaching past fruit midbody, antrorsely barbellate.

1–2 per spikelet, 2–2.1 mm;

body brown with paler center, obovoidlenticular, 1.5–1.7 × 1.2–1.3 mm, margins flowing to tubercle;

surfaces finely transversely striate with minute pits;

tubercle lowtriangular, 0.3–0.5 mm.

1–2 per spikelet, (1.9–)2–2.5 mm;

body dark brown with paler center, lenticular, broadly ellipsoid to orbicular, 1.6–2 × 1.5–1.6 mm, margins flowing to tubercle;

tubercle lowtriangular, 0.5 mm, often apiculate.