短芒薹草 duan mang tai cao

Rhizome obliquely ascending. Culms tufted, 15-35 cm tall, slender, compressed trigonous, smooth. Basal sheaths dark brown, split into fibers. Leaves longer or shorter than culm, blades 3-5 mm wide, flat, margins scabrid. Involucral bracts shortly leafy, shorter than inflorescence, long sheathed, sheath 1.2-2 mm. Spikes 3 or 4, spaced; terminal spike male, clavate-cylindric, 15-30 × 2-3 mm, with peduncle (0.5-)1.5-5 cm; lateral spikes female, cylindric, 17-30 × 3-4 mm, densely flowered; peduncle enclosed in involucral bract sheath but lowest one exserted. Female glumes pale, obovate-oblong, ca. 2.5 mm (excluding awn), green costa 3-veined, excurrent into a scabrid awn 1.5-2 mm, apex obtuse or rounded. Utricles pale green, longer than or equaling glume, sometimes slightly recurved, elliptic or obovate, ca. 3 mm, membranous, sparsely puberulent, many veined, base attenuate into a short stipe, apex attenuate into a short beak; beak conic, recurved, 2-toothed at orifice. Nutlet pale brown, tightly enveloped, obovate, trigonous, ca. 1.8 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex contracted into a short neck, neck apex discoid-annulate; style base conically thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Apr-Jul.

● Grasslands on mountain slopes, wet and shady places in forests; 400-1800 m. Anhui, Gansu, Hunan, Shaanxi, Zhejiang.