Carex nitida Host var. aspera (Boeckeler) Kükenthal; C. obesa Allioni var. aspera Boeckeler.

Rhizome long, creeping or obliquely ascending. Culms tufted, 10-30 cm tall, triquetrous, smooth, clothed with few red-brown and bladeless sheaths and rudimentary sheaths at base, rudimentary sheaths usually disintegrating into reticulate fibers. Leaves shorter than culm, blades 1-3 mm wide, ± stiff, flat or revolute on margins, scabrous on upper surfaces and margins, rather shortly sheathed. Lowest involucral bract leaflike, shortly sheathed, upper ones scalelike, long awned at apex. Spikes 3-5, upper spikes congregated at top of culm, lowest spike rather remote; terminal spikes 1 or 2 male, lanceolate or lanceolate-clavate, 1-2.5 cm, subsessile; lateral spikes female, oblong or ovate, 1-1.5 cm, densely several to 12-flowered, shortly pedunculate. Female glumes red-brown, oblong-ovate, ca. 4 mm, membranous, 1-veined, margins yellowish hyaline, apex acuminate. Utricles yellow-green, dark brown at maturity, yellow at base, obliquely patent, later nearly horizontally divaricate, almost equaling glume, subelliptic or elliptic-obovate, obtusely trigonous, 3.8-4 mm, leathery, smooth, indistinctly veined, base broadly cuneate, apex abruptly contracted into a medium-sized to long beak, orifice emarginate. Nutlets gray, elliptic or subobovate, trigonous, ca. 3 mm; style base thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.

Mountain slopes, valleys, forests; 1000-2600 m. Gansu, Xinjiang [Afghanistan, Russia (W Siberia), Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan].