蕨状嵩草 jue zhuang song cao

Hemicarex filicina C. B. Clarke, J. Linn. Soc., Bot. 20: 384. 1883; Kobresia filicina var. subfilicinoides P. C. Li.

Rhizomes short. Basal sheaths persistent, brown, reddish brown, or yellowish brown, dull, not fibrillose, retaining a few dried leaf blades. Culms tufted, flaccid or slightly stiff, obtusely trigonous, 8-35 cm tall, slender, 0.4-0.8 mm in diam. Leaves basal, slightly shorter than to exceeding culms; blade flat or partly folded, 0.6-2(-3) mm wide, usually flaccid, midrib distinct abaxially. Inflorescence spicate, yellowish green or partly brown, linear or linear-oblong, 1-4(-5) × 0.1-0.3 cm, dense above, basal spikelets usually slightly distant; a few terminal spikelets male, lower ones bisexual; lowest involucral bract glumelike, apex aristate, arista to 8 mm. Bisexual spikelets usually 2-flowered, basal one female, distal one male, male flower with 1 or 2(or 3) stamens. Glumes yellowish brown laterally, with green midvein, ovate-oblong, 2-3 (excluding arista) × 0.5-1 mm, midvein broad, 3-ribbed, margin hyaline, apex aristate or acute, arista to 2 mm. Prophylls yellowish green or yellowish brown with ferruginous spots and lines, oblong or linear-oblong, 2-2.6 × 0.5-0.7 mm, membranous, 2-keeled (sometimes obscurely), keels scabrid, margins open to middle part or below, apex rounded. Nutlets narrowly oblong, trigonous, 1.9-2.4 (excluding beak) × ca. 0.6 mm, beak ca. 0.5 mm, exserted from prophylls when mature, shortly stipitate, stipe ca. 0.2 mm. Stigmas 3, short. Fl. and fr. Jul-Oct.

Forest understories, dry riverbeds, on rocks; 2000-4000 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India (Himachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand), Nepal].

A specimen with wide leaves and long spikes from Yunnan was described as Kobresia filicina var. subfilicinoides, but similar forms have been seen from Nepal and are not worth taxonomic recognition.