Flora of North America species comparison

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

shorter than culm;

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

exceeded by culm;

blades lax, linear, proximally flat, 3–5 mm wide, apex abruptly narrowed, trigonous, subulate.

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

spikelet clusters 4–6, mostly widely spaced;

peduncles erect or ascending, slender;

branches capillary, divaricate, or widely spreading, to small clusters of 1–few spikelets; leafy bracts mostly exceeding clusters.

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.

lanceovoid, 3–4(–6) mm, apex acute to acuminate;

fertile scales elliptic, 2.5 mm, apex acute, midrib forming mucro or awn.

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

perianth bristles 6, overtopping tubercle, antrorsely 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.

mostly 2–4(–several) per spikelet, (1.5–)1.8–2(–2.1);

body greenish or pale brown, broadly ellipsoid to narrowly obovoid, lenticular, 1.2–1.5 × 1–1.2 mm;

surfaces transversely finely wavy-rugulose, intervals vertically striatealveolate, or alveolae isodiametric;

tubercle flat, triangular-subulate, 0.5–0.6(–0.8) mm.