Carex shichiseitensis Hayata.

Rhizome short. Culms tufted, 20-75 cm tall, acutely trigonous, clothed at base with yellowish brown or dark yellow-brown sheaths disintegrating into reticulate fibers. Leaves subequaling culm, blades linear, 3-5 mm wide, flat, margins revolute. Lower involucral bracts leaflike, conspicuously surpassing inflorescence, sheathless, upper ones setaceous. Spikes 3-5, approximate; terminal spike male, rarely with a few female flowers at apex, narrowly cylindric, 45-65 × 1.5-2 mm, with peduncle; lateral spikes female, rarely a few male flowers at apex, long cylindric, 2.5-6.5 × 3-4 mm, densely many flowered, with slender, slightly scabrous peduncles, lowest one 2-3 cm, pendent. Female glumes pale, ferruginous flecked, oblong, ca. 2 mm (excluding awn), green 3-veined costa excurrent into a scabrous awn at truncate or emarginate apex. Utricles dark brown, longer than glume, broadly ovate or elliptic, biconvex, 2.5-3 × ca. 1.8 mm, densely papillose, nerveless except for 2 costas on edges, broadly convex, apex abruptly contracted into a short beak, orifice entire or emarginate. Nutlets brown, slightly loosely enveloped, suborbicular or broadly ovate, ca. 1.5 mm, densely papillose; style long, base not thickened; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. Mar-May.

Moist soil of grasslands, ditches, streambanks, roadsides. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shandong, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, N Thailand, Vietnam].