钩状嵩草 gou zhuang song cao

Carex uncinioides Boott, Ill. Gen. Carex 1: 8. 1858.

Rhizomes very stout, shortly oblique. Basal sheaths few, pale brown or cream, dull, retaining dried leaf blades, decaying to fibers. Culms tufted, rigid and erect, obtusely trigonous or subterete, (1.5-)6-50 cm tall, 1-2.5 mm in diam. Leaves basal or sub-basal, shorter than culms; blade flat, 2-4 mm wide, midrib distinct abaxially. Inflorescence densely paniculate (very rarely spicate), yellowish brown and partly green, narrowly club-shaped, (1-)2.5-7 × 0.8-1.7 cm; lowest involucral bract glumelike, apex aristate, arista short or long (occasionally subequaling inflorescence); branches oblong or lanceolate, appressed, androgynous or female, lower branches sometimes distant; spikelets unisexual with only 1 female flower; female glumes yellowish brown, with green midvein, oblong or ovate, 5-8 (excluding awn) × 2.4-3.6 mm, membranous, midvein extending into arista, margin not hyaline, apex aristate. Prophylls yellowish brown, utriculiform, narrowly lanceolate, 5.5-8.5(-10.5) × 1.4-1.5 mm, herbaceous, upper part often hairy, 2-keeled and many veined, keels scabrid, margins fused from base to just below apex. Nutlets chestnut-brown, narrowly oblong, trigonous, 3.1-4.5 × 0.8-1.4 mm, not beaked (but style base sometimes persistent), shortly stipitate. Rachilla in female spikelets longer than nutlet, slightly exserted from prophyll, green, flat, margins ciliate. Stigma 3. Fl. and fr. Jun-Oct.

Alpine meadows, streamsides, lakesides, grassy slopes, forest margins, among shrubs; 2900-4900 m. Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan [Bhutan, India (Sikkim), Myanmar, Nepal].