高山薹草 gao shan tai cao

Rhizome with slender stolons, clothed with brown bladeless leaf sheaths. Culms tufted, 5-8 cm tall, triquetrous, smooth on lower part and scabrous on angles of top, clothed with few yellow-brown or red-brown, bladeless sheaths at base, sheaths partly splitting into fibers. Leaves slightly longer than or shorter than culm, blades 0.5-1 mm wide, rather thin, flat or slightly revolute on margins, sheathed; sheaths membranous at one side, usually split. Involucral bracts yellowish brown, scalelike, lanceolate, awned at apex, not sheathed. Spikes 2 or 3, congregate at top of culm; terminal spike male, lanceolate, 7-8 mm, sessile; lateral spikes female, broadly ovate or subglobose, 5-6 mm, densely several flowered, sessile. Female glumes dark red-brown, elliptic or elliptic-ovate, ca. 3 mm, 1-costate, upper margins hyaline, apex acute or obtuse. Utricles greenish yellow, sometimes slightly brown, suberect or slightly obliquely patent, shorter than glume, broadly obovate or obovate, obtusely trigonous, 2-2.2 mm, leathery, shiny, glabrous, not veined, base cuneate, margins membranous, apex abruptly contracted into a very short beak, orifice truncate. Nutlets dark brown, tightly enveloped, broadly obovate, trigonous, ca. 1.5 mm; style persistent, base thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

● Mountain slopes; ca. 3700 m. Sichuan (Kangding).