糙毛薹草 cao mao tai cao

Rhizome slightly elongate, ligneous, with long stolons. Culms 45-60 cm tall, rather slender, obtusely trigonous, smooth, eventually disintegrating into fibers at base. Leaves slightly longer than culm, blades ca. 5 mm wide, relatively stiff, with 2 conspicuous lateral veins, base plicate and flattened distally, upper surface and margins scabrous; sheaths up to 10 cm, sometimes eventually splitting. Involucral bracts leaflike, longer than inflorescence, long sheathed. Panicle rather narrow and loose, longest up to 40 cm, with 10-20 or more spikes, lowermost 1 or 2 partial panicles remote, with slender peduncle, upper peduncles rather short; spikes androgynous, male part longer than female part, only with few female flowers, narrowly cylindric, 1.5-2.5 cm, with medium-sized peduncle. Female glumes brown-yellow, ovate, ca. 3.5 mm, membranous, green 1-veined, apex acute, muticous. Utricles greenish, longer than glume, suberect, oblong-lanceolate, trigonous, ca. 5 mm, ferruginous punctate, loosely hispidulous, abaxially distinctly 2-veined laterally, base abruptly contracted into a stipe, apex gradually narrowed to a medium-sized beak, orifice obliquely truncate, brownish on margins. Nutlets brownish yellow, tightly enveloped, oblong, trigonous, ca. 3 mm, base very shortly stipitate, apex mucronate; style base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Apr-May.

● Forests on mountain slopes; ca. 2300 m. Yunnan (Jingdong: Wuliang Shan).