单穗擂鼓荔 dan sui lei gu li

Mapania dolichopoda Tang & F. T. Wang.

Rhizomes thick, woody. Culms lateral, 20-70 cm tall, 2-4 mm thick, with several cataphylls toward base. Leaves basal, ± distichous; leaf sheath dark green, open, folded, overlapping each other, 7-12 cm, leathery; leaf blade ca. 1.2 m × 2-3.5 cm or longer, subleathery, margin and abaxial midvein serrulate, apically gradually narrowed into an acutely triquetrous and flagelliform apex. Involucral bracts yellowish green, glumelike, ovate-lanceolate, 1.5-2.5 cm, slightly shorter to nearly as long as inflorescence, leathery, midvein abaxially elevated, margin brown and thickly membranous. Inflorescence a single terminal spike, ellipsoid to subobovoid, 3-3.5 × 1.5-2 cm, with many glumelike bracts and pseudospikelets. Glumelike bracts yellowish, spirally and imbricately arranged, ovate-oblong, 1.2-1.5 cm, papery. Pseudospikelets with 6 glumes, 3 male flowers, and 1 female flower; basal 2 glumes opposite, cymbiform, membranous, keeled, spinulose on apical part of keel, each subtending 1 male flower; remaining 4 bracts narrowly oblong, outermost one subtending a male flower. Filaments to 1.5 cm; anthers linear, ca. 8 mm. Style ca. 9 mm; stigmas 3. Nutlet brown, shortly stipitate, subobovoid to ellipsoid, ca. 7.5 mm, obtusely 3-sided, outer surface succulent, apex conically rostrate. Fl. and fr. Oct-Nov.

River margins, dense forests, ditch margins in valleys; ca. 500 m. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Hainan [Indonesia, Malaysia].