黄花薹草 huang hua tai cao

Carex chrysolepis var. odontostoma (Kükenthal) Ohwi; C. gokwanensis Hayata; C. odontostoma Kükenthal.

Rhizome short, stolons elongate. Culms subloosely tufted, 10-35 cm tall, slender, erect or ± curved, subsmooth, clothed at base with yellow-brown to dark brown sheaths disintegrating into fibers. Leaves longer than culm, blades linear, 1.5-3 mm wide, flattish or slightly curved. Lower involucral bracts with sheaths 1-1.5 cm, lowest with a setaceous blade, upper glumelike. Spikes 2-5, upper ones close together, lower 2 or 3 somewhat distant, erect, with long peduncles; terminal spike male, linear-clavate, 10-30 × ca. 5 mm; lateral spikes female, linear-cylindric, 1-3 × 0.5-0.8 cm, subloosely to subdensely many flowered, mostly with short peduncles enclosed in involucral bract sheaths. Female glumes reddish or purplish brown, ovate-lanceolate or obovate, somewhat shiny, upper margins ciliate, green 1-veined costa ending in a mucro, apex acute. Utricles stained with reddish brown above, longer than glume, erect to erect-patent, ovate-lanceolate, compressed trigonous, 4-7 mm, faintly veined, wholly pubescent, margins subdensely hispidulous, beak rather long, deeply lobed at orifice. Nutlets tightly enveloped, elliptic-oblong; style beaklike, base thickened; stigmas 3.

Rather dry grasslands in forests. Taiwan [Japan].