康定三毛草 kang ding san mao cao

Basionym: Trisetum clarkei (J. D. Hooker) R. R. Stewart var. kangdingense Z. L. Wu, Acta. Biol. Plateau Sin. 2: 16. 1984 ["kangdingensis"].

Perennial with slender rhizomes. Culms usually solitary, erect from ascending base, 40–50 cm tall, 2–3 mm in diam., pubescent below panicle, 2–3-noded. Leaf sheaths longer than internodes, loose, lower sheaths pilose; leaf blades broadly linear, flat, 7–10 cm, 4–5 mm wide, scaberulous on both surfaces and margins; ligule 1.5–3 mm, truncate, margin ciliolate. Panicle scarcely exserted from uppermost leaf sheath, dense, elliptic in outline, lobed, 12–15 cm, pale yellowish; branches erect or slightly spreading, pubescent, densely clothed in branchlets and spikelets, lowest 6–8 cm. Spikelets 5.5–6 mm, florets 3; rachilla hairs ca. 1 mm; glumes slightly unequal, acuminate, lower glume narrowly lanceolate, ca. 5 mm, upper glume narrowly elliptic-oblong, 5.7–5.9 mm; lemma narrowly lanceolate-oblong, 5–5.3 mm, scabrid, awned from upper 1/4, apex entire; awn 3.2–3.4 mm, almost straight, slightly recurved at base, not twisted; palea keels scabrid. Anthers 1–1.1 mm. Fl. Aug.

* Damp ground near water; 3000–3700 m. Qinghai, Sichuan.

The spikelets of this species are the same as those of some forms of Trisetum spicatum, but it is excluded from both T. spicatum and T. clarkei by its strikingly more robust rhizomatous habit and large, dense, scarcely exserted panicles.