似矮薹草 si ai tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms tufted, 3-5 cm tall, slender, hair-shaped, triquetrous, smooth, brown and persistent sheathed at base. Leaves longer than or equaling culm, flat, blades 1.2-2 mm wide, slightly stiff, glabrous, scabrous on upper surface and margins, triquetrous and revolute at apex. Involucral bracts brown, spathelike, involucral bract blades awn-shaped and slightly scabrous. Spikes 2 or 3, basal one radicicolous, remaining spikes approximate; terminal spike male, obovate-oblong, 7-7.5 mm, 3-5-flowered; lateral spikes 1 or 2, female, oblong, 7-8 mm, ca. 3 mm thick, loosely 4-6-flowered; peduncles slender, hair-shaped, basal one 2.5-2.7 cm, upper rather short, ca. 10 mm, enclosed in involucral bract sheath; rachis tortuous. Female glumes brown laterally, green at middle, oblong, papery, 1-veined, margins white hyaline, apex subrounded, scabrous shortly awned. Utricles yellowish brown, narrowly elliptic, trigonous, ca. 3 mm, densely pubescent, 2-veined laterally, not distinctly thinly veined, base attenuate into a stipe, apex attenuate into a short beak, orifice shortly 2-toothed. Nutlets yellowish brown at maturity, narrowly elliptic, trigonous, 2.2-2.5 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex beakless; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

● Grasslands in valleys; ca. 3000 m. NW Yunnan (Lijiang).