棕叶薹草 zong ye tai cao

Rhizome thick, woody, with stolons. Culms loosely tufted, lateral, slender, 22-35 × 0.2-0.25 cm, trigonous, lower part smooth, upper part loosely pubescent, base with brown sheaths. Leaves basal and cauline; basal leaf single, elliptic or elliptic-lanceolate, 22-42 × 4-10 cm, scabrid abaxially, glabrous adaxially, 7-14-veined, replicate, entire, base attenuate, apex caudate; petiole 7-10 cm, folded, glabrous; cauline leaves green, spathelike, loosely pubescent, margins brown, membranous. Involucral bracts spathelike. Panicle compound, several branched; inflorescence branches racemose, single or binate, often 1 or 2(or 3)-spiked; peduncles of inflorescence branches tenuous, lowest one up to 8 cm, upper ones gradually shorter, scabrid; bractlets glumelike, ovate-lanceolate, 3-4 mm, loosely hairy. Spikes bisexual, androgynous, arising from flowerless utriculiform cladoprophylls, linear-cylindric, 25-40 × 3-4 mm; male part of spike nearly as long as female part, oblong; female part loosely many flowered; male glumes dark brown, oblong, 4.5-5 mm, membranous, 3-veined, apex obtuse; female glumes pale brown with dark brown spots and short lines, oblong, 4.5-5 mm, membranous, loosely hairy abaxially, 3-veined, apex acuminate. Utricles pale brown with dark brown spots and short lines, elliptic, trigonous, ca. 4 mm, membranous, with 2 lateral veins abaxially, subsessile, apex contracted into beak of medium length, orifice obliquely truncate. Nutlets brown at maturity, obovate-oblong, trigonous, ca. 2.5 mm; style base not thickened; stigmas 3.

Wet grasslands in valleys; ca. 1300 m. SE Yunnan [Vietnam].