Flora of North America species comparison

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

erect, trigonous, multiribbed, rather stiff.

shorter than culm;

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

spikelet clusters 1–3, turbinate to hemispheric, 1.5–3 cm wide; subtending leafy bracts mostly exceeded by distal compound.

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.

pale brown to nearly white, fusiform, 4–5(–7) mm, apex narrowly acute;

fertile scales elliptic, 3.5–4 mm, apex narrowly acute, midrib excurrent as mucro.

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

perianth bristles (15–)18–20, reaching tubercle tip, retrorsely barbellate.

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 per spikelet, 2.5–3.2 mm;

body brown with pale center, obovoid distal to short stipe, lenticular, 1.7–2.2 × 0.8–1.5, margins narrow, wirelike, flowing into tubercle edges;

tubercle flat, narrowly triangular-subulate, 0.8–1 mm.

leaves overtopped by culm;

blades narrowly linear, proximally flat, (1.5–)2–3.5 mm wide, apex tapering, trigonous.