Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect to spreading, leafybased;

scapes nearly filiform, nearly trigonous, few ribbed.

shorter than culm;

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

spreading to erect, exceeded by scape;

blades filiform to linear, proximally flat or involute, becoming involute, 0.4–2 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, leafyinvolucrate, 0.5–1 cm wide;

involucral bracts 3–6, spreading to recurved, whitebased, greentipped, narrowly linear, longest bract elongatesubulate, 4–8 cm × 2–5 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, 4–6 mm;

scales several, boatshaped, basal ones with ciliolate keel, fertile ones 3–3.8 mm.

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.

1–1.2 mm;

body yellow to black, nearly orbicular, tumidly lenticular, 0.8–1 × 0.6–0.7(–1) mm;

surface lattices shortlinear, vertical in fine undulating rows, with ends raised to rounded, transverse rugulosities;

tubercle lowtriangular, lunate, 0.2–0.3 mm, apex acute, blunt or apiculate.