复序薹草 fu xu tai cao

Rhizome woody. Culms tufted, 40-60 × 0.15-0.2 cm, trigonous, smooth. Leaves basal and cauline, flat, 2-3 mm wide, glabrous abaxially, prominently scabrid adaxially; basal persistent leaf sheaths pale brown, fibriform. Involucral bracts leafy, longer than inflorescence, long sheathed. Panicle simple, 20-30 cm, 2-4-branched; inflorescence branches racemose, single, 5-8 cm, 3-8-spiked; peduncles of inflorescence branches tenuous, 5-8 cm, usually not exserted from sheaths; inflorescence axes loosely hairy on edges; bractlets glumelike. Spikes bisexual and androgynous, cylindric, 2-6 cm; male part of spike usually ca. 1/2 length of or rarely equaling female part; female part with many dense flowers; male glumes brown or brown laterally and pale green at middle, lanceolate, 3-3.5 mm, membranous, margins narrowly hyaline, apex apiculate; female glumes yellowish green at middle and reddish brown or purplish brown laterally, oblong-lanceolate, 2.5-3 mm, membranous, loosely pubescent, 3-veined, margins narrowly hyaline, apex acuminate, shortly awned. Utricles pale green, obovate or ovate-globose, flatly trigonous, slightly inflated, 3-3.5 mm, papery, with several fine veins, upper part with brown spots and loosely pubescent, base subsessile, apex shortly beaked, orifice minutely 2-toothed. Nutlet brown at maturity, loosely enclosed in utricle, ovate to triangular-ovate, trigonous, ca. 1.5 mm, base shortly stipitate, apex with contorted apiculus; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3.

Forests, grasslands; 1300-2500 m. Guizhou, Yunnan [Bhutan, India].