似莎薹草 si suo tai cao

Rhizome short, without stolons. Culms tufted, 30-70 cm tall, rather stout, trigonous, scabrous on angles of upper part. Leaves longer than culm, blades 5-8 mm wide, flat, slightly stiff, long sheathed, sheaths brownish at base. Involucral bracts of lower part leaflike, longer than spike, lowermost one shortly sheathed, uppermost one awn-shaped, not sheathed. Spikes 3-5, congregated at top of culm, lowermost one slightly remote; terminal spike male, narrowly cylindric, 2-3 cm, pedunculate; lateral spikes female, cylindric or shortly cylindric 1.5-5 cm, densely many flowered, pedunculate. Female glumes pale, oblong-ovate, ca. 5 mm (including awn), membranous, greenish 3-veined, apex acute and aristate, awn 3-3.5 mm, hispidulous on margins. Utricles yellowish green, obliquely patent, later horizontally divaricate or deflexed, 2-3 × as long as glume (excluding awn), elliptic, trigonous, 4-5 mm, subleathery, glabrous, distinctly several veined, base abruptly contracted into a short stipe, apex gradually narrowed to a medium-sized to long beak, beak straight, deeply split into 2 teeth at orifice, teeth ca. 1 mm, straight, ± rigid, not recurved toward sides. Nutlets yellowish, slightly loosely enveloped, broadly obovate, trigonous, ca. 1.2 mm; style slender, tortuous, base not thickened; stigmas 3, rather short. Fl. and fr. Sep-Nov.

Ditch sides, watersides; ca. 1300 m. Gansu [Japan, Russia; Europe, North America].