镰喙薹草 lian hui tai cao

Rhizome woody, rigid, stoloniferous. Culms tufted, 20-45 cm tall, slender, obtusely trigonous, smooth, clothed at base with dark brown sheaths eventually disintegrating into reticulate fibers. Leaves longer than culm, blades pale green, linear, 3-5 mm wide, flat, slightly rigid, margins scabrous. Involucral bracts reduced to shortly bladed, sheathing 8-15 mm, lowest one setaceous. Spikes 4 or 5; terminal spike male, larger, clavate, 3-5 × 0.3-0.5 cm, with short peduncle; lateral spikes female, distant, narrowly cylindric, 2-5 × 0.4-0.5 cm, densely many flowered, subloosely flowered at base. Female glumes red-brown, obovate-oblong, ca. 3.5 mm, margins narrowly white hyaline, 1-veined costa ending in a mucro, apex truncate or emarginate. Utricles yellow-green and ferruginous, longer than glume, ovate or narrowly elliptic, trigonous, 4.2-4.5 mm, membranous, densely hispid, base gradually attenuate into stipe ca. 1 mm, apex abruptly contracted into beak 1.2-1.8 mm, orifice obliquely truncate, 2-toothed. Nutlets pale brown, tightly enveloped, ovate, trigonous, 1.5-2 mm; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3.

● Forests, alpine thickets, meadows, roadsides; 2000-4200 m. W Sichuan, NW Yunnan.