扁果薹草 bian guo tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms tufted, rigid, 20-60 cm tall, trigonous, subsmooth, occasionally 1-leaved at middle, clothed at base with purple or dark brown sheaths disintegrating into parallel fibers. Leaves shorter than culm, blades linear, 3-5 mm wide, flattish or with ± revolute margins, with purple-brown veins. Lower involucral bracts equaling or shorter than subtending spike, long sheathing, upper involucral bracts shortly sheathing, blades setaceous. Spikes 7-10 at 5-7 nodes, middle ones 2- or 3-nate, rarely 4-nate, upper ones ± contiguous, lower one spaced, all androgynous, with male part 1/3-2/5 length of spike, cylindric to oblong-cylindric, 2-5 cm, male part 1-2 mm wide, female part 3-4 mm wide, densely many flowered, peduncles exserted. Female glumes yellow-brown, ovate to lanceolate-ovate, 3-4 mm (excluding awn), membranous, margins pale hyaline, 1-veined costa excurrent into a scabrous awn 1-3 mm, apex acute. Utricles erect, yellowish green with brown flecks or turning brown, longer than glume, lanceolate, flattened trigonous, 6-7 mm, thinly membranous, sparsely puberulent, faintly veined, base contracted, upper margins serrulate, apex gradually tapering into a beak, orifice deeply 2-lobed. Nutlets elliptic, trigonous, ca. 2.5 mm, base stipitate; stigmas 3, persistent.

● Forest floors on high mountains. Taiwan.

No specimens have been seen by the present authors.