泽生薹草 ze sheng tai cao

Rhizome stout. Culms 60-150 cm tall, triquetrous, scabrous on upper part, clothed with brown or reddish brown sheaths at base. Leaves equaling or longer than culm, blades 10-15 mm wide, flat, ± stiff, with distinct and transverse septate nodes between veins, rather long sheathed. Involucral bracts leafy, lowermost involucral bract longer than inflorescence, nearly not sheathed or lower involucral bracts shortly sheathed. Spikes 5-10, lower spikes remote and upper spikes approximate; terminal 3-6 spikes male, oblong-cylindric or cylindric, 2-6 cm, subsessile; remaining spikes female, cylindric, 3-6 × ca. 1 cm, densely many flowered, sometimes with male flowers at top, upper spikes subsessile, lower spikes slightly long pedunculate. Female glumes brown, lanceolate, ca. 6 mm, 3-veined, apical margins hispidulous, apex acuminate, mucronate. Utricles fuscous-green, obliquely patent, nearly equaling glume, elliptic-ovate, obtusely trigonous, 5-6 mm, leathery or slightly corky, glabrous, several veined, base cuneate, apex gradually narrowed to a slightly broad and short beak, orifice slightly divergent and shortly 2-toothed. Nutlets rather loosely enveloped, obovate, trigonous, slightly concave on 3 sides; style stiff, persistent, base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.

Damp places at riversides, at lakesides, or in swamps. Xinjiang [Russia (W Siberia); SW Asia (Iran)].