糙喙薹草 cao hui tai cao

Rhizome elongate. Culms 25-70 cm tall, slender, obtusely trigonous, smooth, clothed at base with dark brown sheaths disintegrating into fibers. Leaves shorter than culm, blades linear, 1-3 mm wide, flat, margins slightly scabrous. Involucral bracts leaflike, shorter than inflorescence, long sheathing 1-3 mm. Spikes 3-5; upper 1 or 2(or 3) male, slightly distant, cylindric, 1-2 × 0.4-0.6 cm; lateral spikes 2 or 3, female, oblong-ovate, ca. 1 cm, loosely flowered. Female glumes dark brown, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, 3.5-4 mm, margins white hyaline, 1-veined costa forming a mucro, apex acuminate. Utricles stramineous below, dark above, 2 × as long as glume, suberect, lanceolate, subcompressed trigonous, 6-7 mm, membranous, faintly many veined, base contracted into a stipe, margins hirsutulous, apex abruptly contracted into a long beak, orifice obliquely truncate, white hyaline, 2-toothed. Nutlets light brown, obovate-oblong, compressed trigonous, 2-2.5 mm; style slender, long, sparsely pubescent; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

● Alpine meadows or moist places, Picea forests; 3000-4600 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Xizang.