闽清薹草 min qing tai cao

Rhizome short, indurate. Culms tufted, 50-90 cm tall, triquetrous, smooth, nodding, clothed at base with sheaths splitting into fibers. Leaves basal, shorter than culm, blades 4-6 mm wide, flat, scabrous above, smooth below. Lower involucral bracts leaflike, sheathed. Spikes 7 or 8; terminal spike male, narrowly linear; lateral spikes female, 2.5-4.5 cm, subdensely many flowered; peduncles slender, lowermost 4-5 cm, gradually shorter upward. Female glumes pale yellow to whitish, ovate to elliptic, 4-5 mm, membranous, 1-veined, apex obtuse (rarely acute) to emarginate (sometimes mucronate). Utricles pale stramineous, longer than glume, spreading, strongly inflated, ovate, plano-convex, 4-5 mm, papery, shiny, many veined, base cuneate, apex gradually narrowed to a long beak, orifice shallowly 2-toothed. Nutlets castaneous, very loosely enveloped, rhomboid-ellipsoid, trigonous, ca. 2 mm, base shortly stipitate; style slender; stigmas 3, short.

● E Fujian (Minqing).