青阳薹草 qing yang tai cao

Rhizome ligneous, obliquely ascending. Culms 25-40 cm tall, obtusely trigonous, smooth. Leaves equaling culm, flat, blades 3-4 mm wide, stiff, scabrous on margins, yellow-brown or purple-brown and persistent sheathed at base, sheaths eventually disintegrating into fibers. Involucral bracts spathelike, green abaxially, yellow-brown adaxially, white hyaline on margins, with setaceous involucral bract blade. Spikes 4 or 5, remote; terminal spike male, long pedunculate, taller than adjacent female spike, cylindric, 4-5 cm, densely many flowered; lateral spikes 3 or 4, female, cylindric, 2-3 cm, ca. 3 mm thick, densely many flowered, peduncles not or slightly exserted from involucral bract sheath. Female glumes greenish, ovate-lanceolate, 2.2-2.5 mm, papery, 1-3-veined, margins white hyaline, apex acuminate. Utricles stramineous, slightly shorter than glume, elliptic, obtusely trigonous, 2-2.5 mm, densely pubescent, 2-veined laterally, not thinly veined, base contracted into a short stipe, apex abruptly contracted into a recurved and short beak, orifice obliquely truncate. Nutlets elliptic, trigonous, ca. 2 mm, base estipitate, apex with a recurved and short beak; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Apr-May.

● Forest margins on mountain slopes. Anhui (Qingyang: Jiuhua Shan).