Neosinocalamus P. C. Keng

Abstract

Arborescent bamboos. Rhizomes sympodium. Culms caespitose, the apex slender, drooping long; internodes terete, initially with setae, culm walls thin; sheath nodes prominent; culm nodes flat; a ring of tomenta within intranodes and below sheath nodes. Bud solitary, peach-shaped, usually purple, appressed to culm; branches many, clustered, dominant branches absent. Culm sheaths leathery or cartilaginous, early to tardily deciduous, the top dome-shaped to concave or mountain-like, brown setose abaxially; auricles and oral setae absent; ligules fimbriate; blades triangular to ovate-lanceolate, reflexed, the base 1/3 to 1/2 as wide as the top of culm sheaths. Branchlets with several to many leaves; auricles and oral setae absent; ligules truncate; blades middle size, papery, transverse veins inconspicuous or a little visible. Flowering branches long, without leaves, pendulous; iterauctant inflorescence; pseudospikelets 1–4 per node, bronze or brown purple when mature; prophyll occasionally with only one keel; bracts 2 or 3, the upper one without buds and secondary pseudospikelets; 3–5 florets for each pseudospikelet, the upper florets small and sterile, the whole pseudospikelet deciduous when mature; rachilla internodes short and thick, not disarticulated when mature; glume 0–1; lemma with inconspicuous veins; palea much smaller and narrower than lemma, 2-keeled, apex 2-lobed; lodicules 1–4, oblong to lanceolate, the base with veins, upper margins with cilia; stamens 6, occasionally less than 6, filaments free, anthers yellow; ovary pubescent, style 1, stigmas 2–4, with different length, plumose. Caryopses cystocarp-like, spindly, shallowly grooved; pericarp thin, easily separated from the seed. Chromosomes 2n = 72. New shoots in autumn.