沟叶薹草 gou ye tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms densely tufted, 8-40 cm tall, slender, obtusely triquetrous, smooth. Leaves basal, 1/3-1/2 height of culms, blades ca. 1 mm wide, involute and hair-shaped, sulcate on upper faces of blades, scabrous on margins, sheathed; sheaths ca. 1 cm, usually dehiscent at membranous part, proximally red-brown, distally stramineous. Lowest involucral bract leaflike, slender, surpassing spike, blades of upper involucral bracts setaceous or reduced to bladeless sheaths, shorter than spike, sheaths 0.8-2 cm. Spikes 2-4, remote, single in an involucral bract sheath; terminal spike androgynous, 0.7-1 cm, with few male flowers at upper part, with 3 or 4 female flowers at lower part; lateral spikes female, narrowly oblong or ovate, 5-8 mm, loosely 3-5-flowered; peduncles slender. Female glumes brownish yellow to red-brown, ovate, ca. 2 mm, membranous, 1-veined, early deciduous, apex obtuse, muticous. Utricles ferruginous-brown at maturity, suberect, slightly longer than glume, obovate, obtusely trigonous, ca. 2.5 mm, membranous, glabrous, ± nitid, obscurely veined, base attenuate into a short stipe, apex abruptly contracted into a rather long beak, orifice white hyaline, obliquely truncate. Nutlets brown, stramineous on angles, rather tightly enveloped, elliptic, trigonous, ca. 2 mm; style persistent, base thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug.

Grassy mountain slopes, morass in forests, streamsides; 600-3200 m. Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning, Nei Mongol [Japan, Korea, Mongolia, Russia (Far East, Siberia)].