Japanese name: ウシクグ Scientific name:Cyperus orthostachyus
[Overview]
An annual found in wetlands and on the banks between rice paddies.
When the plant is rubbed, it gives off a lemon-like scent.
It has no rhizome; the flowering stems are somewhat tufted, erect and thick, reaching 20–70 cm tall.
The leaves are longer than the flowering stems and linear, 0.2–0.8 cm wide, with rough margins.
From the tip of the flowering stem, 5–7 branches 5–20 cm long bear spikelets, and the whole forms an umbel-like inflorescence.
The branches of the inflorescence are unequal in length.
At the base of the inflorescence there are about 3 long leaf-like bracts.
The ridges of the central axis of the spike have bristle-like small spines.
The spikelets bear 8–20 florets arranged in a feather-like pattern, and are somewhat flattened and linear, with their faces turned toward the axis.
The stigma is 3-branched.
The scales are blood purplish brown, broadly elliptic and entire.
The fruit is obovate and slightly shorter than the scales; when ripe, the scales and fruit fall off and the axis of the spikelet remains.
