中甸薹草 zhong dian tai cao

Carex inaequalis Boott ex C. B. Clarke, Fl. Brit. India 6: 726. 1894, not J. F. Gmelin (1791).

Rhizome short, woody. Culms densely tufted, 22-55 cm, roundly trigonous, smooth. Leaves cauline, almost equaling or longer than culm, blades linear, ca. 2 mm wide, flat, scabrous above, rigid, with brown-green sheaths, lowest sheath bladeless. Lowest involucral bract leaflike, longer than inflorescence. Spikes 4-7, androgynous or female, linear, 1-2 cm, 2-4 per node, with peduncles up to 6 cm (androgynous spikes usually on longer peduncles). Female glumes reddish brown, ovate-oblong, margins hyaline, 1-veined costa excurrent into a mucro ca. 0.6 mm. Utricles chestnut-brown, shiny, longer than glume, narrowly elliptic, obtusely trigonous, 3-3.5 mm, glabrous (except for few hairs on margins of beak), weakly veined, base gradually contracted, apex gradually narrowed into a beak of medium length, orifice 2-toothed, hyaline. Nutlets loosely enveloped, trigonous, ca. 1.5 mm; style base thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

Calcareous rocks in coniferous forests; ca. 2700 m. NW Yunnan (Zhongdian) [Bhutan, India (Sikkim), Nepal].