Flora of North America species comparison

slender, ± filiform, leafy, terete to bluntly trigonous.

erect, slender, leafy-based, trigonous, several-ribbed.

shorter than culm;

blades spreading to ascending, ± filiform, proximally flat, 0.5–1(–1.5) mm, apex tapering, trigonous.

spreading to erect, overtopped by culm;

blades narrowly linear, proximally flattened, 0.5–3 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.

spikelet clusters 1–3, loose to dense, widely spaced to close together, turbinate to hemispheric; leafy bracts setaceous, mostly exceeding spikelet clusters.

terminal, solitary, headlike, dense, white, leafy-involucrate;

involucral bracts several, flaring to recurved, white from broadened base nearly to median, then green to tapered tip, longer bracts 13 cm × 2–7 mm.

dark redbrown, lanceovoid, 2.5–3.5(–4) mm, apex acute;

fertile scales ovate, 2–3.5 mm, apex acute or acuminate, rarely minutely awned.

white, ovoid, 5–7 mm, apex acute;

fertile scales many, boatshaped, sharply curvedkeeled, 3–4(–5) mm, apex acute or blunt.

bristles 6, of various length, mostly extending from fruit midbody to tubercle base, antrorsely barbellate.

perianth absent.

1–2 per spikelet, (2–)2–2.5 mm;

body brown with pale center, lenticular, broadly ellipsoid, 1.5–1.7 × 1.2–1.3 mm, surfaces nearly smooth or very finely cancellate;

tubercle flat, triangular with short-oblong, blunttipped nose, or triangularsubulate, 0.5–0.8 mm.

several per spikelet, 1.5–1.7(–2) mm;

body yellow to mahogany, broadly pyriformobovoid, tumidly lenticular, 1 × 0.5–0.7 mm, widest at apex, margins thickened, interrupted at base of tubercle;

surfaces transversely undulaterugose, ridges contiguous, of shortlinear papillae;

tubercle broadly triangular, 0.5–0.6 mm, graycrustaceous, apex short acuminate.

= 12.