13. Kobresia royleana (Nees) Boeckeler, Linnaea. 39: 8. 1875.
喜马拉雅嵩草 xi ma la ya song cao
Rhizomes short, thick, woody. Basal sheaths prominent, brown or reddish brown, dull, not fibrillose, retaining dried leaf blades. Culms densely tufted, rigid, acutely trigonous, or subterete in lower part, (2-)6-75 cm tall, 1-2.5 mm in diam. Leaves basal, shorter than culms; blade flat, 2-4 mm wide, midrib distinct abaxially. Inflorescence a dense or slightly loose panicle, brown, 1-3.5 × 0.6-1.2 cm; inflorescence branches simple, obliquely ascending, decreasing in length toward apex; lowest involucral bract glumelike, apex aristate. Terminal spikelets of inflorescence branches male, lower ones bisexual or unisexual. Bisexual spikelets with 1 basal female flower and 2 or 3(-6) distal male flowers. Glumes brown, with green midvein, ovate-oblong, 2.6-5.1 × 1.7-3.5 mm, margin hyaline or not, apex acute or aristate. Prophylls pale brown, oblong or oblong-lanceolate, 2.7-5 mm, membranous, 2-keeled, keels scabrid, margins open to base. Nutlets narrowly oblong, trigonous, 1.7-4 mm, beak to 1 mm, very shortly stipitate. Sterile rachilla sometimes present in female spikelets, to 1/3 as long as nutlet. Stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Sep.
Moist habitats, among scrub; 700-5200 m. Gansu, Qinghai, Sichuan, Xinjiang, Xizang, Yunnan [Afghanistan, India (Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand), Kashmir, Kyrgyzstan, Nepal, Pakistan, Tajikistan].
