根花薹草 gen hua tai cao

Rhizome short, woody, rigid. Culms very short. Leaves 35-70 cm, blades broadly linear, 1.4-2 cm wide, flat, base clothed with purple-brown sheaths disintegrating into fibers, upper margins slightly scabrous, apex acuminate. Involucral bracts sheathlike. Spikes 3-6, all basal and approximate; terminal spike male, linear-cylindric, 1.8-2 cm; remaining spikes female, oblong-cylindric, 1.8-3 cm, densely flowered, pedunculate. Female glumes light green-brown, ovate, ca. 3 mm, margins broadly white hyaline, 3-veined costa forming a short mucro at obtuse apex. Utricles brown, more than 2 × as long as glume, obliquely patent, ovate-lanceolate, inflated trigonous, 6-6.5 mm, leathery, puberulent, many veined, contracted at both ends, base shortly stipitate, apical beak serrulate, orifice shallowly 2-lobed with short teeth. Nutlets dark purple-brown, tightly enveloped, elliptic, ca. 3.5 mm, trigonous with angles constricted at middle, base shortly stipitate, apex abruptly contracted into a beak ca. 1 mm, beak expanding into an annulate orifice; style base thickened; stigmas 3. Fr. Apr-May.

● Rock crevices along streamsides, shady places in forests; 600-1200 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hunan, Yunnan.