青海荸荠 qing hai bi qi

Perennials. Rhizomes present; stolons elongate. Culms tufted, erect, grayish green, 25-30 cm tall, ca. 1 mm thick, glabrous. Leaf sheaths 1 or 2, purplish red, 3-4 cm, smooth. Spikelet brown, oblong, 5-7 × 2-3 mm, few flowered. Basalmost glume empty, amplexicaul for whole spikelet base; fertile glumes dark brown, ovate to oblong-ovate, ca. 3.5 × 2.5 mm, margin broadly hyaline, apex obtuse. Perianth bristles 5-7, shorter than nutlet, retrorsely spinulose. Stigmas 2. Nutlet greenish yellow, obovoid, ca. 1.7 × 1.5 mm, biconvex, smooth, apex constricted; persistent style base shortly conic, wider than long, ca. 1/3 as long and more than 1/2 as wide as nutlet, spongy, apex obtuse to subrounded. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

● Shallow water at lake margins; ca. 3300 m. Qinghai (Qinghai Hu).