白山薹草 bai shan tai cao

Carex curta Goodenough.

Rhizome short. Culms tufted, 25-50 cm tall, erect, trigonous, scabrous above, clothed at base with brown bladeless sheaths. Leaves shorter than culm, blades 2-3 mm wide, flat, margins scabrous. Involucral bracts glumelike, proximal ones sometimes setaceous. Spikes 4-7, gynaecandrous, ovate-oblong, 6-10 × 3-4 mm; upper spikes congested, lower ones remote. Female glumes pale, ovate, ca. 2 mm, membranous, 1-veined, apex acute. Utricles green-brown, slightly longer than glume, ovate or elliptic, plano-convex, 2-2.2 × ca. 1.2 mm, membranous, glabrous, minutely tuberculate, brown-purple 5-12-veined on both faces, base subrounded, spongy, shortly stipitate, apex abruptly contracted into a slightly scabrous short beak, orifice emarginate. Nutlets tightly enveloped, elliptic or ovate, plano-convex, ca. 1.5 mm, base shortly stipitate; style base not thickened; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug. 2n = 56.

Swamps, wet places along streamsides; 900-1100 m. Heilongjiang, Jilin, Nei Mongol, Xinjiang [temperate Asia, Europe, North and South America].