Piptatherum kuoi S. M. Phillips & Z. L. Wu

This species is distinctive within the genus in China on account of its very broad glumes and plump, glabrous floret with the tip exserted from the glumes.

Perennial, loosely tufted from knotty rootstock. Culms stiffly erect, up to 1 m tall, 2–2.5 mm in diam., scaberulous-puberulous, 2–3-noded. Leaf sheaths glabrous, shorter than internodes; leaf blades stiffly ascending, linear or broadly linear, flat or margins inrolled, 10–25 cm, 5–12 mm wide, abaxial surface smooth, adaxial surface asperulous-puberulous, apex slenderly acuminate; ligule 1–3 mm, obtuse or truncate. Panicle narrow, 15–25 cm; branches 2 per node, suberect, 1–5 cm, densely scabrid. Spikelets yellowish green; glumes elliptic-obovate, 4–5 × 3.5–4 mm, herbaceous, 5–7-veined with transverse veinlets, apex rounded; callus ca. 0.5 mm, knoblike, glabrous; lemma elliptic, 4–5 mm, shortly exserted from glumes, blackish brown at maturity, 5-veined, glabrous, margins overlapping (before caryopsis develops), apex entire; awn persistent, 10–17 mm. Anthers ca. 2.5 mm, glabrous at apex. Fl. and fr. Apr–Jul.

Guangdong, Guizhou, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, E Sichuan, Taiwan, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Japan (Ryukyu Islands)].

Under shrubs, moist shady places among rocks, roadsides; 600–1900 m.

Oryzopsis obtusa Stapf, Hooker's Icon. Pl. 24: t. 2393. 1895; Piptatherum obtusum (Stapf) Roshevitz (1951), not Nees & Meyen (1841).