微药羊茅 wei yao yang mao

Plant loosely tufted or turf-forming; shoots intravaginal or extravaginal. Culms (10–)18–60 cm tall; nodes usually 1(–2). Leaf sheaths glabrous; auricles usually absent; leaf blades setaceous, conduplicate or sometimes flat, 2–15 cm × 1–2 mm, veins 7–12; adaxial to abaxial sclerenchyma strands present or absent, abaxial sclerenchyma in narrow discrete strands; ligule 0.2–0.5(–1) mm, margin ciliolate. Panicle loose, open, usually drooping, 4–10 cm; branches 3–5(–7) cm, flexuous, 1 at lowest node. Spikelets 5–6(–7) mm, purplish or sometimes brown; florets 2–5; glumes smooth, margins membranous, apex subobtuse; lower glume lanceolate, 1.5–3 mm; upper glume broadly lanceolate to oblong, 3–4 mm; rachilla internodes 0.8–1 mm; lemmas 4–5 mm, scabrid; awns (0.5–)1–2(–4) mm; palea keels scabrid. Anthers 0.5–1 mm. Ovary apex sparsely hairy. Fl. and fr. Jun–Sep.

Wet places in alpine meadows, grassy mountain slopes, floodlands, swamp meadows; 2500–5300 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [NW India, Kashmir, Nepal].

This species has unusually small anthers.