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Hairy annual with persistent elongated taproot. Lvs all radical but not rosulate, broadened at base with petiole ill-defined, 4-10 cm × 1-4 mm, narrow-linear, entire, pilose, sometimes sparsely so, with tuft of woolly hairs at base; main vein 1; apex acute. Scapes 10-20 cm long, terete, ± dark-villous. Spikes 3-6 cm long, cylindric. Bracts very conspicuous, to 2 cm long, linear-subulate, hairy outside; margins membranous; apex rounded to truncate. Sepals c. 3 mm long, ± broad-elliptic, pilose; margins hyaline. Corolla tube = calyx; lobes c. 2 mm long, ovate, ± reflexing. Stamens glabrous, scarcely exserted. Style densely hairy, exserted. Capsule 2.5-3 mm long, ellipsoid, 2-seeded. Seeds 2.2-2.9 mm long, ellipsoid, reddish brown, with inner surface strongly concave and hilum resembling a figure of 8.
Taprooted, short-lived, usually annual, rather thinly hairy; lvs linear or nearly so, to 18 cm, the petioles dilated and papery at the sheathing, striate base; spikes cylindric, 3–6(–10) cm, the linear bracts conspicuously long-exsert, the lower ones exsert 5–25 mm, the upper ones often shorter but still conspicuous; sep narrowly oblong-obovate, rounded at the tip; cor-lobes 2 mm, spreading; stamens 4, typically only barely or scarcely exsert and the fls selfed, seldom longer and the fls open-pollinated; seeds 2, brown, elliptic, 2–3 mm, very convex on the outer side, concave on the inner; 2n=20. Disturbed habitats; native from Ill. to La. and Tex., now naturalized over most of e. U.S. and adj. Can.
Perennial herb; scape up to 0.45 m high. Leaves amplexicaul, cauline; blade linear, 100142 x 2-7 mm, thinly hirsute to glabrous. Flowers: spikes 100-150 mm long; bracts long, conspicuous, projecting well beyond flowers; Nov.-Feb.
Perennial herb, up to 200 mm tall. Leaves amplexicaul, cauline. Bracts long, conspicuous, projecting well beyond flowers.
