纤穗薹草 xian sui tai cao

Rhizome short. Flowering culms arising from axils of leaves. Basal sheaths dark brown, split into fibers. Leaf blades 12-40 cm × 2-3 mm, flat, margins scabrid, apex acuminate. Lowest involucral bract leafy, longer than inflorescence, uppermost scalelike. Spikes 5 or 6; terminal spike male, linear, 3-4 cm, ca. 0.5 mm thick, with peduncle 3-4(-17) mm; lateral spikes female, 4 or 5, narrowly cylindric, 10-40 × 1.5-2 mm, subloosely flowered, with slender peduncle 4-10 cm. Female glumes pale brown, broadly ovate, 1.2-1.5 mm, membranous, 1-3-veined, costa green, margins ciliate, hyaline, apex rounded. Utricles pale brown, longer than glume, rhombic-fusiform, trigonous, 2-3 mm, ca. 1 mm wide, membranous, puberulent, many veined, apex gradually attenuate into a beak, orifice emarginate. Nutlet brown, tightly enveloped, rhombic or fusiform, trigonous, 1.5-2 mm, with faces excavated in both upper and lower parts, base shortly stipitate, apex bearing a short cylindric neck, neck pale yellow, 0.1-0.2 mm, truncate at top; style base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. winter.

● Shady places in mixed forests of valleys; ca. 400 m. Fujian, Guangdong.