刺喙薹草 ci hui tai cao

Rhizome with long stolons, slender, woody. Culms 10-25 cm tall, slender, acutely trigonous, clothed at base with sheaths disintegrating into fibers. Leaves subequaling culm, blades linear, 1.5-3 mm wide, flat, margins revolute. Involucral bracts sheathless, lowest involucral bract leaflike, longer or shorter than inflorescence. Spikes 3-5; terminal spike male, linear-cylindric, 2.5-4.5 cm; lateral spikes female, occasionally some becoming androgynous and bearing several male flowers at apex, oblong or ovate, 1.5-2.8 cm, lowest one with slender peduncle 7-20 mm, others subsessile. Female glumes dark brown, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, ca. 2 mm, green 3-veined at middle, margins narrowly white hyaline, apex obtuse. Utricles gray-green above, brownish below, minutely ferruginous papillose, longer and broader than glume, broadly ovate, plano-convex, ca. 2.5 mm, base rounded, shortly stipitate, apex abruptly contracted into a hispidulous short beak, orifice entire. Nutlets loosely enveloped, oblong; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. May-Jul.

● Marshy meadows, field margins; 2000-3200 m. S Xizang, NW Yunnan.