font settings

Font Size: Large | Normal | Small
Font Face: Verdana | Geneva | Georgia

Arundinaria

(Genus)

Overview

[ Back to top ]

Small to arborescent bamboos, spreading or loosely clumped. Rhizomes leptomorph. Culms diffuse to pluricaespitose, suberect to drooping, 1-7(-13) m tall, 0.5-4(-6) cm thick; internodes terete to flattened on one side above branches. Branch buds tall, with or without promontory, within 2-keeled prophyll, always open at front. Branches (1 or) 2-5(-7), subequal. Lateral branch axes always s ubtended by sheaths, without replication of lateral branches. Culm sheaths deciduous to persistent, blade u sually recurved or reflexed, lanceolate, articulate. Leaf sheaths persistent; blade oblong-lanceolate or narrowly lanceolate, small to medium-sized, without marginal necrosis in winter, arrangement random, transverse veins distinct. Inflorescence an open panicle or raceme, flowering branches usually subtended by tiny bracts. Spikelets several to many flowered, slender; rachilla internodes extended, disarticulating. Glumes 1 or 2, mucronate; lemma similar to glumes; palea 2-keeled, apex obtuse; lodicules 3. Stamens 3; filaments free, slender; anthers yellow. Style usually very short; stigmas 2 or 3, plumose. Caryopsis dry, oblong. New shoots May-Jun.

About eight species: SW China, E Himalayas, Vietnam, SE United States; five species (four endemic) in China.

In FRPS (9(1), 1996), Arundinaria was considered a unispecific, North American genus with no Asian representatives at all. A much broader treatment of the genus has also been advocated by several authors. In this treatment the morphologically closest Asian species under Arundinaria, those from Bashania and Sarocalamus, are included. Arundinaria subg. Arundinaria d iffers in its persistent culm sheaths and larger florets and is restricted to the SE United States.[1]

Photos

[ Back to top ]

Taxonomy

[ Back to top ]

The Genus Arundinaria is further organized into finer groupings including:

Footnotes

[ Back to top ]
  1. Zheng-de Zhu, De-Zhu Li & Chris Stapleton "Arundinaria". in Flora of China Vol. 22 Page 9, 112. Published by Science Press (Beijing) and Missouri Botanical Garden Press. Online at EFloras.org.

Sources

[ Back to top ]
Last Revised: September 22, 2009
2009/09/22 16:16:41