陕西薹草 shan xi tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms densely tufted, 30-35 cm tall, rather slender, ca. 1.5 mm thick, soft, smooth. Leaves shorter than culm, flat, blades 1-2 mm wide, soft, brownish and persistent sheathed at base. Involucral bracts spathelike, greenish sheathed, with involucral bract leaf at apex. Spikes 3 or 4, lowermost one remote or nearly basal, others approximate; terminal spike male, cylindric, 1.4-1.6 cm, ca. 2 mm thick, densely many flowered, sometimes with 1-3 female flowers at base; lateral spikes female, linear-cylindric, 1.7-3 cm, ca. 2 mm thick, sometimes 1-3-branched at base with branches arising from flowered utriculiform cladoprophylls, sometimes with a few male flowers at apex; peduncles filiform, very long exserted from involucral bract sheath. Female glumes brownish laterally, green at middle, oblong, ca. 2 mm, papery, 3-veined, margins narrowly white hyaline, apex truncate or emarginate, mucronate. Utricles greenish, equaling or slightly longer than glume, narrowly elliptic, obtusely trigonous, 2-2.5 mm, papery, densely pubescent, 2-veined laterally, not thinly veined, base gradually narrowed to a short stipe, apex attenuate into a short beak, orifice emarginate. Nutlets brown at maturity, narrowly elliptic, 1.8-2 mm, trigonous; style base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.

● Grasslands on mountain slopes, wet places in valleys; 2800-3200 m. S Gansu, Shaanxi (Taibai Shan).