陈氏薹草 chen shi tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms 40-57 cm tall, trigonous, smooth. Leaves surpassing culm, blades green, broadly linear, 5-9 mm wide, flat, revolute, upper margins scabrous, apex acuminate. Involucral bracts shortly bladed, sheathing. Spikes 4 or 5; terminal spike male, clavate-cylindric, 1-2.7 cm; lateral spikes 3 or 4, female except for several male flowers at apex, cylindric, 3.5-6 × 0.5-0.8 cm, densely flowered. Female glumes pale, elliptic-lanceolate, 6-6.5 mm, lustrous, glabrous, green 3-veined costa excurrent into a long awn. Utricles yellow-brown, shorter than glume, obliquely patent, rhomboid-elliptic (excluding beak), 7-7.5 mm (including beak), leathery, pubescent, many veined, base cuneate, apex abruptly contracted into a compressed long beak ca. 4 mm, orifice deeply 2-lobed with long teeth. Nutlets tightly enveloped, ovate-elliptic, ca. 3 mm, tri-gonous with angles constricted at middle, faces concave both at apex and at base, base curved stipitate, apex abruptly contracted into a very short curved beak; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Apr-May.

● Forested slopes. Fujian, Hunan, Jiangxi, Zhejiang.