丝秆薹草 si gan tai cao

Carex filamentosa K. T. Fu, Fl. Tsinling. 1(1): 445. 1976, not Petrie (1916).

Rhizome long and thick, obliquely ascending. Culms loosely tufted, 15-20 cm tall, slender, filiform, obtusely trigonous, scabrous on angles. Leaves shorter than culm, elongate after flowering, flat, blades 1-2.5 mm wide, soft, sheaths dark brown, persistent. Involucral bracts spathelike, involucral bract sheaths long, with short blade. Spikes 2 or 3, lowermost one remote or nearly borne at base of culm, others approximate; terminal spike male, linear, 7-10 mm, 1.5-2 mm thick, few flowered; lateral spikes 1 or 2, female, oblong or narrowly oblong, 7-10 mm, 2-3 mm thick, loosely few flowered; peduncles slender, filiform, long exserted from involucral bract sheath; rachis straight or tortuous. Female glumes purple-brown laterally, green at middle, ovate-oblong, 3-3.8 mm, papery, 1-veined, scabrous on vein, margins white hyaline, apex acute, mucronate. Utricles pale greenish, slightly longer than glume, obovate-oblong, obtusely trigonous, 3.5-4 mm, papery, densely pubescent, 2-veined laterally, not thinly veined, base contracted into an incurved long stipe, apex abruptly contracted into an indistinctly recurved, short beak, orifice emarginate. Nutlets brown at maturity, obovate-oblong, trigonous, ca. 3 mm, base attenuate, stipitate, apex rounded with a recurved short beak; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Aug.

● Picea and Abies forests, thickets, alpine meadows; 1100-4300 m. S Gansu, E Qinghai, Shaanxi (Taibai Shan), SW and W Sichuan, NW Yunnan.