拟三穗薹草 ni san sui tai cao

Rhizome short. Culms tufted, 15-20 cm tall, slender, triquetrous, smooth. Basal sheaths dark brown, disintegrating into persistent fibers. Leaves equaling to exceeding culm, blades 3-5 mm wide, flat, slightly verruculose on upper surface, scabrid along involute margins. Involucral bracts leaflike, shorter or longer than subtending spikes, sheath 5-10 mm. Spikes 2-4, upper ones separated; terminal spike male, linear, 10-25 × ca. 1 mm, subsessile, male glumes with connate margins from base to middle, filament of stamen flat, free (not connate); lateral spikes cylindric, 10-25 × ca. 3 mm, sparsely flowered; upper peduncles short and enclosed in involucral bract sheath, lowest one exserted, 0.5-1 cm, erect, slender. Female glumes pale brown, broadly ovate, ca. 1.5 mm, apex acute. Utricles yellowish green, longer than glume, erect, ovate-fusiform, trigonous, 4.5-5 mm, membranous, puberulent, many veined, base attenuate and stipitate, apex gradually attenuate into a beak, orifice minutely 2-toothed. Nutlet yellowish, tightly enveloped, ovate, ca. 3 mm, apex discoid-annulate; style base conically thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Apr-May.

● Forests, roadsides; ca. 1200 m. S Zhejiang (Baishanzu).