细果薹草 xi guo tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms tufted, 20-55 cm tall, smooth, clothed at base with light brown sheaths. Leaves 1/3-1/2 length of culm, blades light green, linear, 2-5 mm wide, flat, margins scabrous, apex acuminate. Involucral bracts leaflike, shorter than subtending spike, sheathing. Spikes 3-5; upper 1 or 2 male, approximate, oblong, 1-1.2 × 0.3-0.5 cm; remaining spikes female, ovate to oblong-ovate, 1.2-1.4 × 0.5-0.7 cm, slightly remote, lowest one remote, with slender, scabrous peduncles 3-4 cm. Female glumes castaneous to ferruginous-brown, broadly ovate or oblong, 3.5-4.5 mm, 1-veined, margins rather broadly white hyaline, apex obtuse. Utricles greenish yellow below, brown above, longer than glume, oblong-ovate, compressed trigonous, 3-6 mm, hirsute abaxially and on margins, nerveless, base contracted, apex gradually attenuate into a conic beak, beak scabrous margined, obliquely truncate, orifice hyaline, 2-toothed. Nutlets brown, tightly enveloped, oblong-trigonous, 2.5-3 mm, base contracted into a short stipe; style erect; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

Alpine meadows; 900-4200 m. Gansu, Xinjiang [Russia].