武都薹草 wu du tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms 30-40 cm tall, rather slender, triquetrous, smooth, clothed with red-brown bladeless sheaths at base. Leaves shorter than culm, blades 1.5-2 mm wide, flat, smooth on both surfaces, margins scabrous. Involucral bracts leaflike, rather short at upper part, shorter than spike, sheathed. Spikes 2 or 3, remote; terminal spike androgynous, 3.5-4.5 cm, male part longer than female part, loosely with a few female flowers at base; peduncles slender, pendent. Female glumes brownish, oblong-ovate or ovate, ca. 4.5 mm, membranous, 1-veined, margins white hyaline, apex mucronate or aristate. Utricles brownish yellow, suberect, longer than glume, elliptic, trigonous, 5-6 mm, hispidulous on upper part, distinctly 2-veined laterally, base attenuate, apex abruptly contracted into a long beak, orifice obliquely truncate or emarginate, white hyaline on margins. Nutlets brown, tightly enveloped, oblong, trigonous, ca. 2.5 mm; style base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.

● Roadsides on mountain slopes; ca. 2400 m. Gansu (Wudu).