Pseudostachyum Munro

Abstract

Shrubby bamboos. Rhizomes sympodium, culm-necks slender and long forming pseudorhizomes, internodes solid. Culms diffuse, erect, the top drooping; internodes terete, glabrous, culm walls very thin; culm nodes flat. Branches many, clustered, subequal. Culm sheaths deciduous, usually shorter than the internodes, truncate, or a little concave on the top; auricles tiny; ligules short; blades triangular, erect, deciduous. Branchlets with a few leaves; leaf sheaths pubescent initially; auricles small, with several oral setae; leaves large, transverse veins prominent. Flowering branches subtended by bracts, inflorescence paniculate; pseudospikelets single or several clustered in the bracts on each node of the flowering branch, small and short, one fertile floret on each pseudospikelet; rachilla extended to the top of the palea of the fertile floret, one extremely reduced floret occurring at the top of the rachilla; glume one; lemma similar to the glume; palea with two keels; lodicules 3–5; stamens 6, filaments free, the apex of the anthers acute; ovary glabrous, style long, stigmas 2, plumose. Caryopses with beaks at the top, glumes, lemma, palea, and lodicules persisted at the base, pericarps crisp, easily separated from the seeds. New shoots May to September.