狭囊薹草 xia nang tai cao

Rhizome creeping. Culms 20-75 cm tall, erect, acutely trigonous, slender, slightly pendent, clothed at base with brown sheaths. Leaves shorter than culm, blades linear, 3-4 mm wide, flat. Lower involucral bracts leaflike, shorter than inflorescence, long sheathing, upper ones glumelike. Spikes 4-7; upper 1-3 male or mixed with female flowers, sometimes gynaecandrous; remaining spikes female, oblong, 1.5-3 cm, densely many flowered, pendent, with slender peduncles 2-7 cm. Female glumes dark sanguineous, ovate or lanceolate, ca. 4 mm, midrib stramineous, apex acuminate. Utricles longer than glume, narrowly lanceolate, upper margins scabrous. Nutlets narrowly elliptic, base long stipitate; style base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jun-Jul.

Picea forests, alpine meadows in thickets, grasslands; 3000-5600 m. W Sichuan, S Xizang (Yadong) [India (Sikkim), Kashmir, Nepal, Pakistan].