亚东嵩草 ya dong song cao

Plants forming dense, round patches; rhizomes very short. Basal sheaths prominent and persistent, brown, dull, not retaining dried leaf blades. Culms erect, subterete, dwarf, ca. 0.5(-4) cm tall, scarcely emerging from sheaths. Leaves basal, usually longer than culms (to 1.5 cm); blade stiffly erect, filiform, ca. 0.8 mm wide, margin involute. Inflorescence spicate, unisexual; all spikelets 1-flowered. Male spikes not seen. Female spike pale brown, subspherical, ca. 1 cm, spikelets ca. 5; lowest involucral bract glumelike with long green arista. Female glumes ovate, ca. 5 (excluding arista) × 3.5 mm, brown laterally, with yellowish green midrib, midrib broad, 3-veined, margin broadly hyaline, apex acute or aristate. Prophylls flushed brown, utriculiform, triangular-ovoid, inflated (not tightly appressed to nutlet at maturity), 4-5 × 2.5-4 mm, thickly papery or leathery, keels obscure, minutely hispid, margins fused to above middle, apex acute, notched. Nutlets triangular-ovoid, 3-lobed, 2.5-3 × ca. 2.3 mm, attenuate to apex. Stigmas 3. Sterile rachillas flat, minute, ca. 1/3 as long as nutlet. Fl. and fr. Sep.

● Alpine meadows, gravelly river terraces; 4800-5100 m. S Xizang (upper Targo Tsangpo basin, Yadong).