近蕨薹草 jin jue tai cao

Rhizome with thick fibers. Culms tufted, 50-90 × 0.25-0.3 cm, trigonous, glabrous. Leaves basal and cauline, longer than culms, flat, 7-12 mm wide, glabrous or scabrid along veins abaxially, prominently scabrid adaxially; persistent sheaths purplish red, fibriform. Involucral bracts leafy, longer than inflorescence branches, long sheathed. Panicle compound, 20-50 cm, 4-9-branched; inflorescence branches distant, binate, rarely single, lanceolate, 3.5-9 × 1.5-3 cm; peduncles of inflorescence branches tenuous, 10-20 cm, obtusely trigonous, upper part pubescent; inflorescence axes sharply trigonous, loosely hairy; bractlets glumelike, ca. 1 mm, loosely hairy, awned. Spikes numerous, bisexual, androgynous, arising from cladoprophylls, ovate or oblong, 5-10 mm; male part of spike thinner and shorter than female part, 4-6-flowered; female part 5-12-flowered; male glumes yellowish green, lanceolate, ca. 3 mm, membranous, with 1 midrib, apex acuminate; female glumes pale green at middle, white or pale brown laterally, ovate, 1.7-1.8 mm, membranous, glabrous, with 1 midrib, apex obtuse. Utricles pale brown or pale yellowish green, sometimes with brown spots and short lines, elliptic, 3-3.5 mm, patent, membranous, without veins abaxially, with 2-4 raised veins adaxially, glabrous or upper part scabrid, subsessile, apex attenuate into excurved beak of medium length, orifice obliquely truncate. Nutlets elliptic, trigonous, ca. 1.5 mm, sessile, apex not mucronate; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3.

● Evergreen forests, shady slopes, roadsides; 1200-2900 m. Hubei, Sichuan, Yunnan.