少穗薹草 shao sui tai cao

Carex rhizomatosa Steudel.

Rhizome stoloniferous, woody. Culms lateral, 20-80 × 0.1-0.2 cm, trigonous, glabrous, base with brown sheaths. Leaves radical and cauline; radical leaves shorter than culms, several ones forming a high shoot, leaf blades linear, flat, 2-5 mm wide, base covered with brown sheaths; cauline leaves brown, spathelike. Involucral bracts spathelike, with linear blades, shorter than inflorescence branches. Panicle compound, with 6-12 distant branches; inflorescence branches subcorymbose, single or binate, 3-5-spiked; peduncles of inflorescence branches tenuous, erect, slightly scabrid; inflorescence axes loosely hairy on edges; bractlets glumelike, ca. 3 mm. Spikes bisexual, androgynous, patent, 4-10 mm; male part of spike nearly as long as or longer than female part; male glumes brown, lanceolate, 3-3.5 mm, glabrous; female glumes pale brown with dense purplish red spots and short lines, ovate to lanceolate, 2-3 mm, upper part loosely pubescent, margins hyaline, apex obtuse, mucronate. Utricles brownish green to purplish brown, patent, oblong, slightly inflated, trigonous, 2.5-4 mm, with several raised veins, hairy, apex contracted into excurved beak of medium length, beak ca. 1/3 length of utricle, orifice prominently 2-toothed. Nutlets elliptic, trigonous, 2-2.3 mm; style base not thickened; stigmas 3.

Grasslands on slopes; 900-1200 m. Guangxi, Guizhou [India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Vietnam].