长密花穗薹草 chang mi hua sui tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms tufted, 48-100 cm tall, acutely trigonous, smooth, clothed at base with dark brown bladeless sheaths. Leaves shorter than culm, blades linear, 3-5 mm wide, flat, margins scabrous, apex long acuminate; side of sheaths ferruginous, membranous. Lower involucral bracts leaflike, surpassing inflorescence, sheathless. Spikes 5-7; upper 2 or 3 spikes male, ferruginous, linear, 50-100 × ca. 2 mm, with short peduncles; remaining spikes female, long cylindric, 60-130 × 4-6 mm, densely many flowered, with slender peduncles 1-3 cm, pendent. Female glumes light brown, lanceolate, 2.5-3 mm, green 3-veined costa excurrent into a mucro. Utricles green, equaling glume, ovate or ovate-lanceolate, inflated, 2.5-3 mm, horizontally patent at maturity, membranous, base cuneate, apex gradually attenuate into an erect or curved, conic short beak, orifice shortly 2-toothed or entire. Nutlets castaneous, loosely enveloped, ovoid to broadly ovoid, biconvex, ca. 1.5 × 1.2 mm; style base not thickened; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. May-Jul.

● Moist places, shady slopes, thickets along valleys; 1000-2800 m. Gansu, W Sichuan.