文山薹草 wen shan tai cao

Rhizome short, with slender stolons. Culms hardly tufted, rather robust, 50-60 cm tall, obtusely trigonous, smooth, clothed below with dark brown and long sheaths. Leaves longer than or equaling culm, blades 4-5 mm wide, flat, smooth on both surfaces, margins scabrous; lower sheaths 12-15 cm. Involucral bracts leaflike, upper sublinear, lower sheathed, upper with short sheaths or nearly sheathless. Spikes 7-10 or more, lower sometimes ramified, androgynous or lower spikes female, female part much longer than male part, cylindric or oblong-cylindric, 2-5 cm × ca. 8 mm, lower 2 spikes pedunculate, others sessile. Female glumes stramineous at middle, red-brown on sides, ovate, 2.5-3 mm, membranous, 1-3-veined, apex acute and aristate, arista scabrous on both margins. Utricles yellow-green, nearly horizontally patent, longer than glume (excluding length of arista), obovate, trigonous, ca. 4 mm, membranous, ferruginous punctate, glabrous, inconspicuously veined, base cuneate, apex abruptly contracted into a long beak, beak ca. 2 mm, shortly 2-toothed at orifice. Nutlets brown, brownish yellow on angles, tightly enveloped, broadly obovate or ovate, trigonous, ca. 2 mm, base stipitate; style base bent, persistent; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Apr-May.

● Evergreen broad-leaved forests on mountain ridges; ca. 2400 m. SE Yunnan (Wenshan).