显异薹草 xian yi tai cao

Carex composita Boott var. eminens (Nees) Boeckeler; C. floribunda Boeckeler; C. peiana F. T. Wang & Tang.

Rhizome woody. Culms tufted, tall and robust, 80-120 × 0.3-0.4 cm, trigonous, smooth. Leaves basal and cauline, longer than culms, flat, 5-8 mm wide, glabrous abaxially, scabrid adaxially; basal persistent leaf sheaths dark brown, fibriform. Involucral bracts leafy, longer than inflorescence, long sheathed. Panicle compound, 3-8-branched; inflorescence branches simply paniculate, single or binate, broadly ovate, 5-8 × 2-3 cm, many spiked; peduncles of inflorescence branches rigid, 4-15 × 0.1-0.2 cm, scabrid; inflorescence axes triquetrous, densely hairy on edges; bractlets glumelike. Spikes single or 2 or 3 clustered, bisexual and androgynous, cylindric, 2-6 cm; male part of spike ca. 1/2 length of or equaling female part; female part with dense and numerous flowers; male glumes brown, oblong-lanceolate, 3-4 mm, membranous; female glumes brown or purplish brown, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, 2.5-3 mm, papery, with 1 scabrid or smooth midrib, margins hyaline, apex acute, shortly awned. Utricles yellowish green with brown spots, obovate-lanceolate, bluntly trigonous, 3-4 mm, membranous, lateral keels hairy, with few fine veins, base attenuate, apex contracted into short excurved beak, beak ca. 1/4 length of utricle, orifice minutely 2-toothed. Nutlet dark brown at maturity, closely enclosed in utricle, elliptic, trigonous, ca. 2 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex nearly not apiculate; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3.

Slopes, roadsides, grasslands, margins of evergreen forests; 300-2000 m. Hunan, Sichuan, Xizang [Bhutan, India (Sikkim), Kashmir, Nepal].