横纹薹草 heng wen tai cao

Rhizome short, with creeping stolons. Culms arising from axils of leaves, 20-50 cm tall, slender, obtusely trigonous, smooth, clothed at base with fibrous remains of old basal leaf sheaths. Leaves slightly shorter than or nearly equaling culm, blades 2-4(-5) mm wide, flat, glabrous, margins scabrid. Involucral bracts with blades, longer than subtending spike, sheathed, sheath 0.5-2.5 cm. Spikes 4 or 5, upper spikes contiguous, lower ones spaced; terminal spike male, linear-cylindric, 10-20 × 1.5-2 mm, sessile or shortly pedunculate, surpassing next female spikelet; lateral spikes female, linear-cylindric, 15-28 × 2-2.5 mm, densely flowered, with peduncle enclosed in involucral bract sheath or shortly exserted. Female glumes yellow-white, oblong, 2.5-3 mm, with 1-veined green costa, apex cuneate, mucronate. Utricle pale green, longer than glume, rhombic-oblong, obtusely trigonous, ca. 3 mm, thinly membranous, glabrous, many veined, apex gradually attenuate into a conic beak, beak ca. 0.5 mm, minutely 2-toothed at orifice. Nutlet tightly enveloped, oblong, ca. 2 mm, with faces excavated both in upper and lower parts, not contracted at angles, base shortly stipitate, apex discoid-annulate; style base slightly thickened; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. May.

Forest margins on mountain slopes, waysides. Anhui, Fujian [Japan].