卡郎薹草 ka lang tai cao

Rhizome long creeping. Culms 20-25 cm tall, slender, compressed trigonous, smooth, basal sheaths pale brown. Leaves longer than culm, blades linear, 1.5-2 mm wide, flat, scabrous abaxially, smooth adaxially, margins scabrous, apex acuminate. Involucral bracts leaflike, shorter than inflorescence, sheathing 0.5-3 mm. Spikes 3, slightly spaced, androgynous, narrowly cylindric, 2.5-3 cm; male part of spike linear, densely many flowered, equaling or slightly longer than female part; female part loosely many flowered, with slender peduncles 1-3 cm, lowest peduncle 3.5-10.5 cm, scabrous. Female glumes pale brown, ovate or ovate-oblong, 2.8-3 mm, margins broadly white hyaline, green 1-veined costa forming a mucro at apex, apex acute. Utricles yellow-green or olivaceous-green, equaling glume, obovate, trigonous, 3-3.5 mm, pubescent, especially on upper part, nerveless except for 2 costas on edges, base cuneate, apex abruptly contracted into a beak ca. 1 mm, orifice white hyaline, obliquely truncate, 2-toothed. Nutlets brown, tightly enveloped, obovate, trigonous, ca. 2 mm, base with a short stipe ca. 0.5 mm; style erect, base not thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jun-Aug.

● Flood lands, alpine meadows; 3000-4000 m. W Sichuan.