急尖薹草组 ji jian tai cao zu

Authors: Prof. Song-Yun Liang, Tetsuo Koyama & Gordon C. Tucker

Rhizome short or stoloniferous. Culms trigonous, stiff or slender. Involucral bracts setaceous or leaflike, sheathless or shortly sheathing. Inflorescence racemose, with 2-8 spikes; upper 1 or 2 spikes male, or terminal spike gynaecandrous; remaining spikes female (with few male flowers at apex), oblong or cylindric, densely many flowered, sessile or with short peduncles. Female glumes dark purple or brown, apex obtuse to acuminate. Utricles suborbicular, broadly obovate, or elliptic, plano-convex or biconvex, densely minutely papillose, apex abruptly contracted into a short beak, orifice truncate or subentire, rarely 2-toothed. Nutlets obovate or oblong; style base not thickened; stigmas 2.

Between 70 and 90 species: Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, Pacific islands (New Zealand), austral South America; 27 species (12 endemic) in three subsections China.