Carex gracilispica Hayata.

Rhizome obliquely ascending, covered with dark brown fibrous remains of old leaf sheath. Flowering culms arising from axils of leaves, 10-30 cm tall, trigonous, slender, slightly scabrid. Leaves equaling to longer than culm, blade 3-10 mm wide, flat, scabrid on both surfaces, herbaceous. Involucral bracts shortly bladed, sheathed, sheath 6-9 mm. Spikes 4-6; terminal spike male, narrowly cylindric, 1-1.5 cm, ca. 1 mm thick, sessile or with peduncle 0.5-2 cm; lateral spikes female, cylindric, 20-50 × 2.5-3 mm, loosely flowered, uppermost female spike surpassing male spike, with peduncle enclosed in involucral bract sheath, lower female spikes spaced, with exserted peduncles, lowest peduncle 2-4(-6) cm. Female glumes dark yellow, broadly obovate, margins broadly hyaline, green costa projecting into a mucro 0.1-0.3 mm, apex truncate to rounded, often emarginate. Utricles olive-green, longer than glume, fusiform, obscurely trigonous, 3-6 × ca. 1 mm, membranous, minutely pubescent, many veined, base cuneate, stipitate, apex attenuate into a beak, orifice 2-toothed. Nutlet pale brown, tightly enveloped, fusiform, trigonous, 2.5-3 mm, with faces excavated both at upper and lower parts, base stipitate, stipe 0.2-0.3 mm, apex with a distinct, stout, cylindric neck, neck ca. 0.5 mm, truncate or shallowly concave at top; style base slightly thickened, persistent; stigmas 3. Fl. and fr. Mar-May.

Forests, grasslands on mountain slopes, streamsides; 500-1200 m. Anhui, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hunan, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Malaysia, Philippines, Vietnam].