芦山薹草 lu shan tai cao

Rhizome short, ligneous, obliquely ascending. Culms ca. 30 cm tall, trigonous, smooth, clothed with dark brown and remnant sheaths at base. Leaves shorter than culm, blades ca. 3 mm wide, flat. Involucral bracts long sheathed, lower blades leaflike, upper blades setaceous, shorter than spike. Spikes 4 or 5, singular in an involucral bract sheath, lower spikes remote, upper spikes ± contiguous, androgynous, male part short, oblong-cylindric, 12-15 mm, densely many flowered; lower spikes long pedunculate, upper spikes shortly pedunculate. Female glumes pallid, lanceolate-ovate, greenish 3-veined, apex acuminate. Utricles greenish, suberect, longer than glume, broadly elliptic, plano-convex, ca. 3 mm, membranous, glabrous, several veined, base abruptly contracted, apex abruptly narrowed into a long beak, beak sparsely hispidulous on margins or subsmooth, 2-toothed at orifice. Nutlets tightly enveloped, subobovate, punctate; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 2, short.

● About 1700 m. C and S Sichuan (Lushan, Xichang).

No specimens have been seen by the present authors. The description is written according to the photograph of the isotype and the original description.