球柱薹草 qiu zhu tai cao

Rhizome stout, ligneous. Culms densely tufted, 40-60 cm tall, ca. 1 mm thick, slender, obtusely trigonous. Leaves shorter than culm, flat or plicate, blades 1-2 mm wide, adaxial surface scabrous, dark brown and persistent sheathed at base. Involucral bracts green, spathelike, with linear bracteal leaf at apex. Spikes 3; terminal spike male, cylindric, 2-3 cm, densely many flowered, peduncles slender, soft, 6-6.5 cm; lateral spikes 2, female, remote, lower one nearly basal, cylindric, 1.8-3 cm, ca. 2 mm thick, densely many flowered, peduncles slender, filiform, soft, lower one up to 20 cm, upper one ca. 10 cm. Female glumes purple-brown laterally, green at middle, oblong, ca. 3 mm, 3-veined, margins broadly white hyaline, apex truncate or emarginate, mucronate. Utricles greenish, equaling glume, obovate-oblong, obtusely trigonous, ca. 3 mm, papery, densely hispidulous, 2-veined laterally and thinly several veined, base gradually narrowed to a short stipe, margins ciliate, apex rounded, indistinctly beaked, orifice emarginate. Nutlets brownish at maturity, obovate-oblong, trigonous, ca. 2 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex nearly beakless; style short, thickened, ovoid, exserted from orifice of utricle; stigmas 3.

● Rocky mountain slopes; 4300-4400 m. SW Sichuan (Xiangcheng).