10. Section Granulares (O. Lang) Kük.
Plants monoecious, with or without
well-developed rhizomes, forming tufts, clumps, or loose colonies of tufts,
sometimes developing late in the growing season. Vegetative stems absent or
reduced to basal rosettes of leaves. Flowering stems erect to ascending,
glabrous. Leaves basal or mostly on the basal half of the stems, glabrous, all
with light green leaf blades. Leaf sheaths with the tip shallowly convex to
concave, sometimes extended past the insertion point of the blade, the ligule
as long as or longer than wide and V-shaped, the ventral side papery and white
or thicker and yellowish brown. Spikes 3–6 per stem, the bracts leaflike, with
well-developed sheaths. Terminal spike staminate, linear to narrowly
oblanceolate in outline. Staminate scales oblong-obovate, reddish brown with
green midrib and tan to white margins. Lateral spikes pistillate, the uppermost
sometimes with a few staminate flowers at the tip, mostly loosely spaced along
the stem, ascending, ovate to narrowly oblong-elliptic in outline, with 10 to
numerous perigynia. Perigynia ascending to spreading, somewhat inflated and
loosely enveloping the fruits, very obscurely trigonous to more commonly nearly
circular in cross-section, broadest at or below the middle, the sides rounded,
with numerous raised nerves, beakless or with a short, smooth beak at the tip,
rounded at the base, the surface smooth, green to brown, not pale or glaucous.
Styles withering during fruit development, jointed to the main body of the
fruit, which is not or minutely beaked at maturity. Stigmas 3. Fruits obovate
in outline, trigonous in cross-section with concave to flat sides, yellowish
brown to brown. Five species, North America, Central America.