葱状薹草 cong zhuang tai cao

Rhizome short, with long stolons, stolons clothed with red-brown and bladeless sheaths. Culms loosely tufted, 25-45 cm tall, obtusely trigonous, rather thick, clothed with few bladeless sheaths. Leaves longer than culm, blades 7-14 mm wide, flat, distinctly 2-veined laterally, purple-red sheathed. Involucral bracts leaflike, lower involucral bracts longer than subtending spike, slightly long sheathed, upper involucral bracts rather narrow and shorter than subtending spike, shortly sheathed. Spikes 5-8, lower spikes remote, upper spikes approximate; terminal 1 or 2 spikes male, sublinear, 2.5-4 cm, pedunculate; remaining spikes female, sometimes with few male flowers at base, cylindric, 2.5-5.5 cm, densely many flowered, lower spikes rather long pedunculate, upper spikes shortly pedunculate. Male glumes brownish red, lanceolate, ca. 6 mm, 1-veined, apex acute; female glumes brownish red, lanceolate-ovate or lanceolate, 3-4 mm, membranous, 1-veined, apex acuminate or acute, mucronate. Utricles green or yellowish green, obliquely patent, longer than glume, obovate-oblong, inflated trigonous, ca. 4 mm, herbaceous, glabrous, several veined, base cuneate, apex abruptly contracted into a rather short beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlets gray-green, brownish yellow on angles, rather loosely enveloped, elliptic, trigonous, ca. 2 mm; style base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jul.

Forests, forest margins, open areas on mountain slopes. Guizhou, Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan, Taiwan [Japan, Vietnam].