倒卵鳞薹草 dao luan lin tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms densely tufted, 20-40 cm tall, ca. 1 mm thick, slender, triquetrous, smooth. Leaves slightly shorter than or equaling culm, flat, soft, smooth, blades 1.3-2.2 mm wide, plicate at upper part, linear, dark brown and persistent sheathed at base. Involucral bracts spathelike, sheaths long, involucral bract leafy at apex, linear, longer than peduncle. Spikes 3 or 4, remote, lowermost one basal; terminal spike male, cylindric, 1.5-2.5 cm, ca. 3 mm thick, densely many flowered; lateral spikes 2-4, female, cylindric, 2-3 cm, ca. 3.5 mm thick, densely many flowered; peduncles slender, filiform, soft, very long exserted from involucral bract sheath. Female glumes dark purple-brown, green at middle, obovate-oblong or oblong, 3.5-4.8 mm, papery, 3-veined, narrowly white hyaline margined at upper part, apex subrounded, mucronate. Utricles green, slightly longer than glume, obovate-oblong, obtusely trigonous, 4.2-5 mm, papery, densely white pubescent, indistinctly 2-veined laterally, not thinly veined, base gradually narrowed to a short stipe, apex abruptly contracted into a short beak, orifice obliquely split, 2-toothed. Nutlets brown at maturity, obovate-oblong, trigonous, 2.5-3.5 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex nearly beakless; style erect or slightly bent, base inflated; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.

● Thickets or meadows on high mountains, grasslands at Abies forest margins; 3400-4300 m. E Xizang, NW Yunnan (Dêqên).