Drepanostachyum P. C. Keng

Abstract

Shrubby or scrambling bamboos. Rhizomes sympodium. Culms unicaespitose, slender, proximally erect, distally pendulous or procumbent on the ground; internodes terete, culm walls usually thin; sheath scars with residue of culm leaf sheath, prominent; nodes flat or slightly prominent. Culm buds w-shaped, adnate. Branches many per node; dominant branches often as thick as culms, sometimes replacing the culm, lateral branches slender, shorter, often no secondary branches. Culm leaves tardily deciduous, distally often long bottleneck-shaped constricted; ligules truncate, blunt rounded arcuate or subulate, margins dentate or lacerated, margins ciliate; auricles tiny or absent, oral setae present or absent; blades erect or reflexed, easily deciduous. Foliage leaves 5–12 per branchlet; ligules tall, often dentate; auricles small or obvious, oral setae developed, radiate; blades small to medium, transverse veins obscure. Flowering branches without foliage leaves; spikelets (1) 2–10, fasciate at upper part of culm or branch nodes; pedicels curved, forming falcate umbel, corymb, panicle or raceme, inflorescent subtended by prophyll and 3–5 gradually larger bracts; florets 2–5 per spikelet, loosely arranged, the apes one sterilet; glumes 2, longitudinal veins prominent; lemma with prominent longitudinal veins, apex acute or slightly concave, a little mucro exerted in the middle; palea equal to or shorter than lemma, 2-keeled, apex often 2-cleft; lodicules 3, stamens 3, filaments free; ovary oblong, style short, stigmas 2, plumose. Caryopses wraped by lemma and palea, with ventral groove. New shoots spring. Flowering and fruiting summer to early autumn.