5. Kyllinga brevifolia Rottbøll, Descr. Icon. Rar. Pl. 13. 1773.
短叶水蜈蚣 duan ye shui wu gong
Perennials. Rhizomes slender, long creeping, clothed with brown, membranous scales, internodes 1-2.5 cm, with 1 culm at each node. Culms serially arranged, sometimes also laxly tufted, 2-30 cm tall, compressed 3-angled, smooth, base not swollen, with 4 or 5 leaf sheaths. Leaves shorter to slightly longer than culm; sheaths brown, mouth obliquely truncate, apex acuminate, basal 2 bladeless, apical 2 or 3 with a blade; leaf blade 5-15 cm × 2-4 mm, flaccid, flat, midvein and apical margin spinulose. Involucral bracts 3, leaflike, longest erect to oblique or horizontal. Spike 1(-3), globose to ovoid-globose, 5-11 × 4-10 mm, with numerous densely arranged spikelets. Spikelets narrowly oblong-ovoid to narrowly ovoid, ca. 3 × 1 mm, compressed, 1- or 2-flowered. Glumes white and rusty brown maculate or rarely straw-colored, ovate, 2.8-3 mm, keel spinulose or not, veins 2 or 3 on each side of keel, apex with a strict or recurved mucro or not mucronate. Stamens 1-3; anthers linear, ca. 0.7 mm. Style long; stigmas 2, less than 1/2 as long as style. Nutlet obovoid-oblong, 1-1.5 mm, biconvex, densely punctate. Fl. and fr. May-Oct.
Under shrubs or forests, grasslands, swamps, meadows, mountain slopes, valleys, wet places along trails, ditch margins, shallow water, river margins, wet places at seashores, paddy field margins; near sea level to 2800 m. Anhui, Chongqing, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, Heilongjiang, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Jilin, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xisha Qundao, S and SE Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Russia (Far East), Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam; tropical Africa, Atlantic Ocean islands, Australia, Central, North, and South America, Indian Ocean islands, Madagascar, Pacific islands].
Kyllinga brevifolia var. yunnanensis E. G. Camus (Notul. Syst. (Paris) 1: 239. 1910) could not be treated here because no material was seen by the present authors.
