膨囊嵩草 peng nang song cao

Rhizomes obliquely and shortly elongate. Basal sheaths yellowish brown, dull, retaining dried leaf blades. Culms tufted, obscurely trigonous, 4-12 cm tall, usually slender, 0.6(-1.4) mm in diam. Leaves basal, shorter than culms, curved; blade flat, 2-3 mm wide, midrib distinct abaxially. Inflorescence spicate or sometimes paniculate, 2-2.5 × 0.7-2 cm, predominantly unisexual; branches if present short, appressed; lowest involucral bract glumelike, apex aristate to varying degrees. Spikelets unisexual (sometimes bisexual), shortly stipitate; glumes brown to yellowish brown, ovate, 4-7.2 × 3-3.5 mm. Prophylls brown or yellowish green marked with brown, utriculiform, inflated (not tightly appressed to nutlet at maturity), ovoid, beaked, 5.5-8 × 2.3-3 mm, thickly papery or leathery, 2-keeled, keels smooth, apex weakly notched. Nutlets obovoid, triquetrous, 2.5-4 × 1.8-2.5 mm, not beaked, style base disklike. Sterile rachilla of female spikelets flat, subequaling or exceeding nutlet, sometimes with 1 or 2 male flowers distally. Stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Sep.

Alpine meadows, grasslands on slopes, dry banks by streams, scree; 3600-4600 m. Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan].

This species is similar to Kobresia nitens C. B. Clarke of the W Himalayas, which differs in having bisexual spikelets.