似矮生薹草 si ai sheng tai cao

Rhizome rather long, with slightly dense roots. Culms 10-30 cm, trigonous, almost all clothed with leaf sheaths, clothed with brown and bladeless sheaths at base. Leaves longer than culm, blades 1.5-2 mm wide, slightly involute on margins, with transverse septate nodes between veins, slightly long sheathed. Involucral bracts leafy, lower involucral bracts longer than inflorescence, upper involucral bracts rather short and thin, shortly sheathed. Spikes 2 or 3, contiguous; terminal spike male, clavate or narrowly cylindric, 2-3.5 cm, shortly pedunculate; lateral spikes female, oblong, 0.8-1.5 × ca. 1 cm, laxly several flowered, shortly pedunculate. Female glumes pale laterally, green at middle, ovate or narrowly ovate, 3.5-4 mm, membranous, 3-veined, apex acuminate, mucronate. Utricles stramineous, obliquely patent, later nearly horizontally patent, longer than glume, narrowly elliptic or oblong, inflated trigonous, 4-5 mm, thickly leathery, glabrous, with 7 slightly concave veins, veins gradually indistinct toward apex, base abruptly contracted and broadly cuneate, apex abruptly narrowed to a slightly broad and short beak, orifice half-moon-shaped concave and sharply 2-toothed. Nutlets tightly enveloped in utricle, narrowly elliptic, trigonous, ca. 3 mm; style base not thickened, late deciduous; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Apr-Jun.

● Sandbanks at seasides. Fujian, Hebei.