求米草 qiu mi cao

Perennial. Culms slender, straggling, ascending from a prostrate base, 20–50 cm tall. Leaf sheaths usually densely tuberculate-hairy, less often glabrous; leaf blades lanceolate to narrowly ovate, 1–15 × 0.3–3 cm, glabrous or variously hairy, base subrounded and usually suboblique, apex acute; ligule ca. 1 mm. Inflorescence axis 9–15 cm, glabrous or hispidulous; racemes 4–9, reduced to dense cuneate fascicles less than 2 cm long, the rachis often setose. Spikelets in 3–5 clustered pairs, lanceolate, hispidulous; glumes herbaceous, awned, the awns stout, purple, viscid; lower glume 3–5-veined, awn 5–10(–15) mm; upper glume 5-veined, awn 2–5 mm; lower lemma herbaceous, 5–9-veined, apex with a stout 1–2 mm mucro, palea absent; upper lemma subcoriaceous, smooth. Fl. and fr. Jul–Nov. 2n = 54.

Light shade in forests, moist places. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hebei, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [warm-temperate and subtropical regions of the N hemisphere, uplands of India and Africa].

Oplismenus undulatifolius is sometimes considered synonymous with O. hirtellus (Linnaeus) P. Beauvois. Although the two taxa intergrade, O. hirtellus (O. aemulus (R. Brown) Roemer & Schultes) generally has longer racemes (to 3 cm) of contiguous spikelets, at least in the lower part of the inflorescence. It has a more tropical distribution than O. undulatifolius and has recently been reported from Taiwan and Yunnan.