球穗薹草 qiu sui tai cao

Carex amgunensis var. chloroleuca (Meinshausen) Kükenthal; C. chloroleuca Meinshausen.

Rhizome slender, creeping or obliquely ascending, with slender stolons. Culms densely tufted, 15-35 cm tall, slender, triquetrous, smooth, scabrous on angles of upper part, with few brown and bladeless sheaths at base, sheaths eventually disintegrating into fibers. Leaves shorter than or nearly equaling culm, blades 1-2 mm wide, flat, slightly soft, scabrous on upper surface and margins, slightly long sheathed, eventually split at membranous side. Lowermost involucral bract green, leaflike, rather thin, longer than spike, upper ones scalelike, brownish, not sheathed. Spikes 2 or 3, rarely 4, congregated at top of culm; terminal spike male, lanceolate, 5-10 mm, subsessile; lateral spikes female, subglobose or broadly ovoid, 5-6 mm, 6-10-flowered, sessile. Female glumes yellowish brown, ovate, ca. 3 mm, 1-veined, margins hyaline, apex acute. Utricles yellow-brownish, obliquely patent, slightly longer than glume, oblong-obovate, plano-convex-trigonous, 3-3.5 mm, herbaceous, densely hispidulous on upper part, indistinctly veined, base cuneate, margins hyaline, apex abruptly contracted into a short beak, orifice obliquely truncate or emarginate. Nutlets stramineous, tightly enveloped, elliptic, trigonous, ca. 2.5 mm, base shortly stipitate; style base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.

Shady places on mountain slopes, swamps; ca. 2000 m. Hebei, Heilongjiang [Mongolia, Russia; E Europe (Ukraine)].