齐云薹草 qi yun tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms tufted, 30-40 cm tall, slender, trigonous, smooth. Basal sheaths pale yellow to pale brown, slightly split into fibers. Leaves slightly longer than culm, blades 2-3 mm wide, flat, stiff, margins scabrid. Involucral bracts shortly leafy or bristlelike, long sheathed, sheaths 1.2-2.2 cm. Spikes 2 or 3, spaced; terminal spike male, narrowly cylindric, 22-65 × 2-3 mm, with peduncle 2-7.5 cm; lateral spikes female, cylindric, 13-30 × 4-6 mm, rather densely flowered, with a few male flowers at apex, with peduncle enclosed in involucral bract sheath or slightly exserted. Female glumes pale or stramineous and pale brown on upper margins, oblong-lanceolate, ca. 3 mm (excluding awn), costa 1-veined, excurrent into a scabrid awn, apex acuminate. Utricles pale brown, shorter than glume, ovate-oblong, trigonous, ca. 3 mm, membranous, glabrous, distinctly many veined, base attenuate into a short stipe, apex attenuate into a beak, orifice obliquely truncate. Nutlet tightly enveloped, ovate, trigonous, ca. 2 mm, with faces slightly excavated in lower part, base shortly stipitate, apex distinctly discoid-annulate; style base conically thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Apr.

● Waysides on mountain slopes. Anhui.