Colanthelia McClure & Smith
From the Greek kolos (shortened) and anthele (plume or panicle of a reed), referring to an inflorescence characteristic.
Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial (plants small to very tall, erect or decumbent). The flowering culms leafy. Culms woody and persistent; scandent, or not scandent; branched above. Primary branches/mid-culm node 1. Culm sheaths deciduous in their entirety (midculm sheaths abscising from a conspicuous persistent girdle). Culm internodes hollow. Unicaespitose. Rhizomes pachymorph. Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated; with auricular setae. Leaf blades broad; pseudopetiolate; without cross venation; disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence spatheate; a complex of ‘partial inflorescences’ and intervening foliar organs (with groups of partial inflorescences at the nodes). Spikelet-bearing axes ‘racemes’, or paniculate; clustered; persistent. Spikelets not secund; pedicellate.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets compressed laterally (?); disarticulating above the glumes (?); disarticulating between the florets. Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret; the rachilla extension with incomplete florets.
Glumes two, or several (rarely); very unequal; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; awnless; similar. Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets distal to the female-fertile florets. The distal incomplete florets merely underdeveloped. Spikelets without proximal incomplete florets.
Female-fertile florets 3–8 (or more). Lemmas not becoming indurated; awnless, or mucronate (?). Palea present; relatively long; entire to apically notched; not indurated; several nerved; 2-keeled (and sulcate). Lodicules present; 3; free; membranous; ciliate; heavily vascularized. Stamens 3. Anthers not penicillate; without an apically prolonged connective. Ovary hairy; without a conspicuous apical appendage. Stigmas 2.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae present (though seemingly not towards the margins). Intercostal papillae over-arching the stomata; several per cell (irregular, sometimes branched, concentrated and largest around the stomata). Long-cells similar in shape costally and intercostally; of similar wall thickness costally and intercostally. Mid-intercostal long-cells rectangular; having markedly sinuous walls. Microhairs present; panicoid-type; in cingulata 60–78(–84) microns long; 8.4–9 microns wide at the septum. Microhair total length/width at septum 6.7–14. Microhair apical cells 24–31.5(–42) microns long. Microhair apical cell/total length ratio 0.38–0.5. Stomata common; in C. cingulata 25–30 microns long. Subsidiaries low dome-shaped. Guard-cells overlapped by the interstomatals (slightly, even when not covered by papillae). Intercostal short-cells common; not paired (solitary, when not paired with prickle bases); silicified. Intercostal silica bodies tall-and-narrow and saddle shaped. Costal short-cells neither distinctly grouped into long rows nor predominantly paired (mostly solitary). Costal silica bodies saddle shaped (predominantly), or tall-and-narrow.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll with adaxial palisade (in places); without arm cells (apparently, in the material seen); with fusoids. The fusoids external to the PBS. Leaf blade adaxially flat. Midrib conspicuous (with a somewhat larger bundle, and a slight abaxial keel: on the other hand, one or two veins near the leaf margins are more strongly keeled); with one bundle only. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups; in simple fans (these large). All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present; nowhere forming ‘figures’ (the girders mostly narrow). Sclerenchyma not all bundle-associated. The ‘extra’ sclerenchyma in abaxial groups; abaxial-hypodermal, the groups isolated (opposite the bulliform groups).
Taxonomy. Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 7 species; Brazil.
Neotropical. Central Brazilian.
References, etc. Leaf anatomical: this project.
Special comments. Fruit data wanting.
Cite this publication as: Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M. J. (1992 onwards). ‘Grass Genera of the World: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval; including Synonyms, Morphology, Anatomy, Physiology, Phytochemistry, Cytology, Classification, Pathogens, World and Local Distribution, and References.’ http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/. Version: 18th August 1999. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993 onwards, 1998), and Watson and Dallwitz (1994), and Watson, Dallwitz, and Johnston (1986) should also be cited (see References).