丽藕草沙蚕 li ou cao sha can

Culms 10–30 cm tall. Basal leaf sheaths finally splitting into dense clumps of fibers; leaf blades 1.5–6 × ca. 0.1 cm, much shorter than the culms, adaxial surface pilose with long scattered hairs, abaxial surface glabrous. Racemes 2–8 cm, slightly flexuose, very dense, spikelets diverging from rachis, imbricate by 1/2 their length or more. Spikelets 6–15 mm, blackish; florets 7–15, loosely imbricate, rachilla visible; lower glume lanceolate, asymmetrical, broadened on one side below middle, sometimes lobed, subacute and mucronate; upper glume narrowly lanceolate-oblong, 2.7–4 mm, apex emarginate and mucronate; lemmas lanceolate-oblong, 2.2–2.6 mm to sinus, 2-dentate, central awn a little shorter or about equaling its lemma, 1.8–2.8 mm, teeth acute to truncate, lateral veins extended into 0–0.5 mm mucros; palea keels narrowly winged, ciliolate. Anther 1, 1.3–1.8 mm. Fl. and fr. Jul–Sep.

* Dry open spaces, sometimes forming a turf; 3000–4600 m. Xizang.

Tripogon liouae has a distinctive habit, with a basal tuft of short leaves and dense, blackish racemes on culms that are conspicuously taller than the basal tuft.