肋脉薹草 lei mai tai cao

Rhizome slender, creeping. Culms loosely tufted, 10-25 cm tall, less than 1 mm thick. Leaves shorter than culm, elongate after flowering, involute on margins, filiform, blades 0.3-0.5 mm wide, slightly stiff, brown and persistent sheathed at base, sheaths eventually disintegrating into fibers. Involucral bracts green, spathelike, lowermost involucral bract blade shortly leaflike, upper ones setaceous. Spikes 2 or 3; terminal spike male, taller than adjacent female spike, clavate or cylindric, 9-18 mm, densely many flowered; lateral spikes 1 or 2, female, lowermost one remote, sometimes borne at base of culm, upper one approximate to male spike, oblong, 7-15 mm, densely several flowered, sometimes loosely few flowered at lower part; peduncles slender, exserted from involucral bract sheath. Female glumes brown laterally, green at middle, ovate, 2.5-3.5 mm, membranous, 3-veined, narrowly white hyaline on upper margin, apex acute, mucronate. Utricles brown, slightly longer than glume, obovate, inflated trigonous, 2.5-2.8 mm, papery, smooth on lower part, loosely pubescent near apex, with several convex veins, base broadly truncate, estipitate, apex abruptly contracted into a short beak, orifice shortly 2-toothed. Nutlets yellow at maturity, obovate, trigonous, 1.7-2.2 mm, base subsessile, apex abruptly contracted into a short beak; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Jul-Aug.

● Mountain slopes of grassland regions; ca. 1500 m. Jilin, Nei Mongol.