卷柱头薹草 juan zhu tou tai cao

Rhizome elongate, ligneous, clothed with sheaths eventually disintegrating into dark brown fibers. Culms densely tufted, 20-50 cm tall, slightly slender, obtusely trigonous, smooth. Leaves shorter than or nearly equaling culm, blades 3-4 mm wide, flat, scabrous on 2 lateral veins of adaxial surface and costa of abaxial surface, sheathed. Lowermost 1 or 2 involucral bracts leaflike, upper ones setaceous, slightly scabrous, sheathed. Spikes 5-8, solitary in an involucral bract sheath; terminal spike male, linear-cylindric, 2-4 cm, peduncle slender; lateral spikes female, space up to 6 cm, rather short near top, narrowly cylindric, 2-4 cm, loosely many flowered; peduncles rather short and thin, enclosed in involucral bract sheath. Female glumes brownish yellow, ovate-lanceolate, 4.5-5 mm, membranous, 3-veined, 2 lateral veins inconspicuous, costa scabrous, margins broadly white hyaline, apex acute. Utricles yellowish green, suberect, longer than glume, narrowly lanceolate, trigonous, ca. 7 mm, membranous, base attenuate, apex gradually narrowed to a long beak, orifice obliquely truncate, white hyaline on margins, sometimes shortly 2-toothed. Nutlets yellow-brown, tightly enveloped, narrowly oblong, trigonous, ca. 3.5 mm, base shortly stipitate; style much longer than utricle; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jul.

Meadow moors, watersides, wet places at roadsides; 200-1000 m. Jilin, Liaoning, Shaanxi, Zhejiang [Japan, Korea, Russia (Far East)].