太湖薹草 tai hu tai cao

Rhizome short. Culm 40-65 cm tall, slender, trigonous, smooth. Basal sheaths scalelike, brown-purple, slightly shining, slightly split into fibers. Involucral bracts bristlelike, sheathed, lower sheaths longer, upper sheaths shorter. Spikes 3 or 4, spaced; terminal spike male, yellowish brown, linear-cylindric, 3-4.5 cm, ca. 3 mm thick, pedunculate; lateral spikes female, linear-cylindric, 2-3 cm, ca. 3 mm thick, loosely flowered, peduncles not exserted. Female glumes pale yellow to yellowish brown, oblong-ovate, ca. 2.5 mm, costa excurrent into a mucro, apex ± acute. Utricles pale green, longer than glume, narrowly fusiform, ca. 4 mm, membranous, sparsely puberulent, many veined, base attenuate into a stipe, apex contracted into a short or medium-sized beak, beak slightly recurved, shallowly emarginate at orifice. Nutlet tightly enveloped, oblong-obovate, trigonous, ca. 3 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex contracted into a short neck; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3.

● Waysides on mountain slopes. Anhui.