根茎嵩草 gen jing song cao

Kobresia williamsii T. Koyama.

Rhizomes elongated, stoloniferous. Basal sheaths few, pale reddish brown, dull, retaining dried leaf blades. Culms loosely tufted, trigonous to subterete, 7-58 cm tall, slender, 1-1.5 mm in diam. Leaves basal or sub-basal, shorter than culms; blade flat, 1.5-4.5(-5) mm wide, midrib distinct abaxially. Inflorescence loosely or densely paniculate, reddish brown with green, club-shaped, 2.6-8 × 0.5-1.2 cm; lowest involucral bract leafy or glumelike with long arista, shorter than or exceeding inflorescence. Lowest spikelets of inflorescence branches bisexual with 1 basal female flower and 1 distal male flower, middle ones unisexual with only 1 female flower, apical ones male; glumes reddish brown, with green midvein, elliptic to oblong, (3.5-)5.5-8.5 × 3.2-4 mm, midvein broad, margin broadly hyaline, apex subacute to rounded-truncate. Prophylls pale green, partly brown, utriculiform, lanceolate, (5.6-)7-10.3 × 1-2 mm, membranous, 2-keeled, keels smooth, apex attenuate into a beak. Nutlets yellowish green, obovoid, trigonous, 3.3-4 × 1.5-2 mm, not beaked. Rachilla in unisexual spikelets, shorter than or subequaling nutlet, flat, prominent, sometimes with a sterile male glume at apex. Stigmas 3, base of style disklike. Fl. and fr. May-Aug.

Grassy slopes, damp slopes in Abies forests, streamsides, cliffs; 3700-4400 m. Xizang [Bhutan, India (Sikkim), Nepal].