冻原薹草组 dong yuan tai cao zu

Authors: Prof. Song-Yun Liang & Tetsuo Koyama

Carex sect. Frigidae Fries ex Kükenthal.

Rhizome short or stoloniferous. Culms trigonous, smooth, rarely scabrous above. Involucral bracts leaflike or setaceous, usually sheathing or sheathless. Spikes 2-7(-10); terminal spike male (sometimes gynaecandrous); lateral spikes female, upper ones contiguous, lower ones spaced, with slender long peduncles, usually pendent. Female glumes dark purple-red or brown, awned. Utricles yellow-green or brown, elliptic or narrowly trigonous, usually flattened, membranous, hispidulous or glabrous, margins scabrous, apex gradually attenuate into a long beak, orifice hyaline, obliquely truncate or 2-toothed. Style base thickened or not; stigmas 3, rarely 2.

About 60 species: Asia, Europe, North America; 38 species (24 endemic) in two subsections in China.