缘毛薹草 yuan mao tai cao

Carex squamata V. I. Kreczetowicz.

Rhizome short, indurate. Culms tufted, 30-55 cm tall, smooth, soft, clothed at base with pale brown or brown bladeless sheaths usually disintegrating into fibers. Leaves shorter than culm, blades linear, 2-3 mm wide, flat, soft, margins scabrous, apex long acuminate. Lower involucral bracts leaflike, conspicuously surpassing inflorescence, gradually tapering becoming setaceous to glumelike. Spicate inflorescence 10-15 cm, upper spikes approximate, lower ones remote; spikes 8-13, gynaecandrous, sometimes terminal spike all female, broadly ovate or ovate-orbicular, 5-10 × 3-8 mm. Female glumes pale green, narrowly ovate to elliptic, 1.8-2.5 mm, 1-veined at middle. Utricles longer than glume, elliptic or ovate, compressed, 3-3.5 × 1.2-1.5 mm, spongy, distinctly several veined on both faces, upper margins narrowly serrulate winged, apex abruptly contracted into a beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlets loosely enveloped, oblong to oblong-ovate, base contracted to shortly stipitate, apex subrounded; style base thickened; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. Apr.

Wet places, moist grasslands; ca. 300 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Henan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang [N Thailand].