细秆湖瓜草 xi gan hu gua cao

Lipocarpha atropurpurea Boeckeler.

Annuals, without a rhizome. Culms tufted, 10-18 cm tall, ca. 1 mm thick, compressed, longitudinally sulcate, glabrous. Leaves basal, ca. 1/3 as long as culm; sheath tubular, 1-1.5 cm; leaf blade ca. 1 mm wide, obsoletely midveined, glabrous, margin involute. Involucral bracts 2 or 3, leaflike, slender, not sheathing. Spikes 2- or 3-fascicled at culm apex, rarely single, ovoid, 4-7 × ca. 2.6 mm, with many bractlets and spikelets; bractlets blackish purple, oblanceolate, keeled, glabrous, apex green, caudate-acuminate, and slightly recurved. Spikelets with 2 glumes and a bisexual flower; glumes oblong, ca. 1 mm, membranous, with several slightly thick veins, margin hyaline, apex acute to obtuse. Stamens 2; anthers oblong, as long as filament. Style short, as long as stigma; stigmas 3. Nutlet blackish purple when mature, narrowly ovoid, ca. 1 mm, plano-convex to nearly 3-sided, densely blackish puncticulate, apex rounded and mucronate. Fl. and fr. Oct-Dec.

Wet places at water margins; 1800-1900 m. Guangxi, Hainan, Yunnan [Vietnam; Africa].