滑茎薹草 hua jing tai cao

Rhizome short, long stoloniferous. Culms 40-50 cm tall, slender, acutely trigonous, smooth, clothed at base with brown or purple-red bladeless sheaths. Leaves equaling culm, blades linear, 2-3 mm wide, flat or plicate, upper margins scabrous. Involucral bracts leaflike, lower ones surpassing inflorescence, sheathless. Spikes 3-5; terminal spike male, linear, 15-25 mm, with peduncle 8-35 mm, slender; lateral spikes female, narrowly cylindric, 15-40 × 2-3 mm, densely many flowered, lowest with peduncle, others subsessile. Female glumes brown, ovate or lanceolate, ca. 1.8 mm, midrib green, 3-veined, margins white hyaline, apex obtuse or truncate. Utricles light yellow-green, longer than glume, elliptic or obovate-elliptic, plano-convex, 2-2.5 mm, membranous, densely minutely papillose, nerveless except for 2 costas on edges, subsessile, apex abruptly contracted into a very short beak, orifice emarginate. Nutlets tightly enveloped, ovate, ca. 1.6 mm; style base not thickened; stigmas 2. Fl. and fr. May-Jun.

Wet places, marshes; 400-500 m. Heilongjiang [Korea].