香港薹草 xiang gang tai cao

Carex hongkongensis Franchet; C. ligata var. nexa (Boott ex Bentham) Kükenthal; C. nexa Boott ex Bentham.

Rhizome short. Flowering culms arising from axils of leaves, 25-50 cm tall, slender, obtusely trigonous, smooth. Basal sheaths split into dark brown fibers. Leaves longer than culm, blade glaucous green, 4-6 mm wide, flat, stiff, scabrid abaxially and along margins. Involucral bracts shortly bladed; sheath purple, 1-2 cm. Spikes 3 or 4, spaced; terminal spike male, linear, 3-5 cm, ca. 1 mm thick, with peduncle 3.5-5.5 cm; lateral spikes female, cylindric, 10-20 × 3-4 mm, rather densely or subdistichously flowered, with slender peduncle 1.5-3.5 cm. Female glumes yellowish green, obovate-oblong, ca. 2.7 mm, green costa 1-3-veined, midvein distinct, margins hyaline, apex somewhat rounded. Utricles longer than glume, rhombic-fusiform, trigonous, 3-3.5 mm, membranous, minutely pubescent above, many veined, base shortly stipitate, apex gradually attenuate into a beak ca. 1 mm, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlet tightly enveloped, fusiform, trigonous, ca. 2.7 mm, faces excavated in both upper and lower parts, base shortly stipitate, stipe ca. 0.3 mm, apex with a white, short, cylindric neck, neck 0.2-0.3 mm, shallowly concave at top; style base thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Feb-Mar.

● Shady places in forests. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong.