披针鳞薹草 pi zhen lin tai cao

Rhizome stoloniferous, stolons slightly thick and long, clothed with purple-brown sheaths. Culms tufted, 40-45 cm tall, rather slender, obtusely trigonous, scabrid on angles, few purple-brown and bladeless sheathed at base, rudimentary sheaths usually disintegrating into reticulate fibers. Leaves slightly shorter or slightly longer than culm, blades 2-4 mm wide, canaliculate on midrib of upper surface, revolute on margins, scabrous on upper surface and margins, rather long sheathed, sheaths 5-6 cm and purple-brown at lower part of culm. Involucral bracts leaflike, lower 1 or 2 longer than inflorescence, shortly sheathed, upper ones linear, shorter than inflorescence, not sheathed. Spikes 6 or 7, rather congregated at top of culm, sometimes lowest one rather remote; uppermost spikes 2 or 3 male, sometimes with few female flowers at base, lanceolate or cylindric, 1.5-3 cm, subsessile; remaining spikes female or androgynous, cylindric, 4-5 cm, densely many flowered, lower spikes with slender peduncles, upper ones with short peduncles. Female glumes purple-brown or yellow-brown laterally, lanceolate, 6-8 mm, membranous, 1-costate, apex acuminate, long aristate, arista 2-4 mm. Utricles olivaceous and slightly red-brown at base and beak, obliquely patent, shorter than glume, elliptic or broadly elliptic, obtusely trigonous or plano-convex, ca. 3 mm, herbaceous, densely white hispidulous, indistinctly veined, base abruptly contracted into a short stipe, apex abruptly narrowed into a ± long beak, orifice subtruncate or emarginate. Nutlets brown, tightly enveloped in utricle, orbicular-ovate or suborbicular, trigonous, ca. 2 mm; style base deflexed, not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.

● Riversides; ca. 2600 m. W Yunnan (Dali).