柄薹草 bing tai cao

Carex divaricata Kükenthal; C. yingkiliensis A. I. Baranov & Skvortsov.

Rhizome short, with long and branched stolons. Culms 30-40 cm tall, slightly slender, compressed triquetrous, scabrid on upper part, yellowish brown and bladeless sheathed at base, sheaths sometimes disintegrating into fibers. Leaves longer than culm, blades 2-4 mm wide, flat, soft, scabrid on margins and veins, long sheathed. Involucral bracts leaflike, longer than spike, nearly not sheathed, lowermost sometimes shortly sheathed. Spikes 3 or 4, lowermost spike remote, upper spikes approximate; terminal 1 or 2 spikes male, linear or clavate, 1-1.8 cm, shortly pedunculate; remaining spikes female, oblong-cylindric or cylindric, 1-3.5 × 0.7-0.8 cm, densely many flowered, upper spikes shortly pedunculate, lowermost spike pedunculate, peduncle up to 5 cm. Female glumes pale ferruginous or pale, ovate-oblong, ca. 3 mm, membranous, 3-veined, margins white hyaline, apex obtuse. Utricles yellowish green, horizontally patent or reflexed, longer than glume, ovate, inflated trigonous, 4-5 mm, papery, glabrous, slightly nitid, several veined, base subrounded, with short and bent stipe, apex abruptly contracted into a long beak 1-1.5 mm, orifice slightly slitting into 2 teeth or emarginate. Nutlets rather loosely enveloped, elliptic or obovate, trigonous, ca. 1.5 mm, base shortly stipitate; style slender, base bent, not thickened; stigmas 3, rather short. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

Swamps in high mountain regions. Heilongjiang, Nei Mongol (Da Hinggan Ling) [Korea, Russia].