疣囊薹草 you nang tai cao

Rhizome long creeping, stout, indurate, clothed at base with brown glumelike sheaths disintegrating into fibers. Culms 6-100 cm tall, stout or slender, acutely trigonous, scabrous, with bladeless sheaths at base. Leaves shorter than culm, blades linear, 1-5 mm wide, flat, apex acuminate. Involucral bracts glumelike. Spicate inflorescence cylindric, usually interrupted, 1.8-7.5 × 0.7-1.3 cm; spikes ovate or oblong, 5-12 × 4-6 mm, upper and lower spikes usually androgynous, middle ones male, lower spikes entirely female. Female glumes pale yellow-brown, ovate, 2.2-3 × 1-1.5 mm, green 1-veined, margins broadly white hyaline. Utricles pale yellow-green, longer than glume, broadly ovate or oblong, plano-convex, 3.5-4 × 1.5-2 mm, membranous, sparsely pilose on both faces, rather densely so above, and usually verruculose, abaxially conspicuously 8-10-veined, adaxially 3-5-veined toward base, base rounded, shortly stipitate, margins broadly serrulate winged, apex gradually narrowed into a beak, beak compressed, deeply 2-toothed at orifice. Nutlets tightly enveloped, ovate or elliptic, plano-convex, 1.5-2 mm, base brown, cuneate or rounded, shortly stipitate; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug.

Forested slopes, meadows, forests, grasslands on forest margins. Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol [Japan, Korea, Russia (Far East, E Siberia)].

Lower Taxa

• Carex pallida var. angustifolia Y. L. Chang
• Carex pallida var. pallida