喙果薹草 hui guo tai cao

Carex hatusimana Ohwi; C. truncatigluma C. B. Clarke subsp. rhynchachaenium (C. B. Clarke) Y. C. Tang & S. Yun Liang.

Plants densely tufted in small clumps. Rhizome short, clothed with hard, dark brown fibers. Culms very low, hidden by leaves, 5-10 cm tall. Leaves narrowly linear, very elongate, 15-28 cm, 2-3 mm wide, gradually tapering to long acute apex. Lower 2 or 3 involucral bracts leaflike, much surpassing inflorescence, up to 20 cm, shortly sheathing. Spikes 3-6, subfastigiate except lowest, erect; terminal spike male, linear, 1-2 cm, shorter than next female spike; lateral spikes female, shortly cylindric, 1-2 cm, sublaxly and contiguously few flowered, peduncle enclosed in sheath. Female glumes stramineous, oblong-elliptic, hard membranous, slenderly many veined besides obsoletely 3-veined costa, ciliolate, apex truncate-rounded, occasionally mucronate. Utricles upright, lageniform with weak constriction at middle, 2 × as long as glume, 5-6.5 mm, thickly membranous, wholly pubescent, slenderly many veined, base stipitate, apex gradually narrowed to erect short beak, orifice shallowly 2-toothed. Nutlets tightly enclosed, ovate-rhomboid, ca. 4 mm, trigonous, base cuneate, apex with neck ca. 1 × 0.7 mm, and truncate at top; style short, base thickened; stigmas 3, short.

Taiwan [Philippines, Vietnam].

This species, which can be discerned at once by the short, slender culms concealed by the leaf tussocks, clearly differs from Carex truncatigluma by the larger (5.5-6.5 mm vs. 3-3.7 mm) utricles of thicker texture and the muticous (vs. cuspidate) subtending glumes.