毛蕊草 mao rui cao

Triavenopsis brachypodium P. Candargy, Arch. Biol. Veg. Pure Appl.1: 65. 1901; Duthiea dura (Keng) Keng & P. C. Keng; D. nepalensis Bor; Thrixgyne dura Keng.

Perennial forming small dense tussocks, with or without long rhizomes; basal sheaths persistent, brown, papery. Culms stiffly erect, 25–100 cm tall, 1–3-noded. Leaf blades 2.5–13(–35) cm, 2–3.5 mm wide, glabrous, apex acute; ligule 2–3 mm, up to 8 mm on culm leaves. Raceme 7–10 × 0.5–0.7 cm; spikelets 8–18, overlapping. Spikelets narrowly cylindrical, 1.4–2.1 cm, floret 1, gray-green; rachilla extension ca. 2 mm, sometimes tipped with reduced floret; glumes oblong-lanceolate, 1.3–2.1 cm, subacute; callus densely pubescent; lemma equal to spikelet, leathery, 10–11-veined, body hispid, especially around awn insertion, apex deeply 2-cleft, lobes 7–10 mm, scabrid, acuminate; awn densely scabrid-pubescent, column 0.8–1 cm, bristle 1–1.6 cm; palea keels thick, prominent. Lodicules absent or 2, oblanceolate. Anthers 1.4–1.6 mm, glabrous or with a few short hairs at apex. Style 6–7 mm; stigmas 2 or 3, 7–9 mm. Fl. and fr. Jun–Oct.

Open woodland, between bushes, sunny grassy slopes in high mountains; 3000–5300 m. Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, Nepal].

The specific epithet "brachypodium" is here a noun in apposition and should not be altered to "brachypodia."

The other two species in the genus, Duthiea bromoides Hackel and D. oligostachya (Munro) Stapf from the W Himalayas, both have spikelets with more than one fertile floret and a branching inflorescence. A slender rachilla extension is often present in D. brachypodium.