Sinarundinaria Nakai
Latin for Chinese Arundinaria (q.v.).
Including Ampelocalamus Chen, Wen and Sheng, Burmabambusa Keng f., Chimonocalamus Hsueh and Yi, Drepanostachyum Keng f.; interpreted by Clayton and Renvoize 1986 to include Yushania and Otatea as well
Sometimes referred to included in Fargesia by Soderstrom and Ellis 1987
Excluding Otatea, Yushania
Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial; rhizomatous. The flowering culms leafy. Culms woody and persistent; branched above. Culm nodes 1 ridged. Primary branches/mid-culm node 3–7. Culm sheaths persistent. Culm internodes solid, or hollow. Rhizomes pachymorph. Plants conspicuously armed (Chimonocalamus), or unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated. Leaf blades linear-lanceolate; broad to narrow; to 12 mm wide (in S. nitida); pseudopetiolate; cross veined; disarticulating from the sheaths; a fringed membrane; very short.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate; without pseudospikelets; a single raceme, or paniculate; spatheate; not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelets 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 often with incomplete florets.
Glumes two; very unequal; shorter than the spikelets; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; similar. Upper glume 7 nerved. Spikelets often 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 1–5. Lemmas not becoming indurated; awnless to awned. Awns 1; median; apical; non-geniculate. Lemmas hairless; 7 nerved. Palea present; relatively long; awnless, without apical setae; several nerved (between and outside the keels); 2-keeled. Lodicules present; 3; free; membranous; ciliate. Stamens 3. Ovary without a conspicuous apical appendage. Stigmas 2.
Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae present. Intercostal papillae over-arching the stomata; several per cell (small, usually on row per long-cell). Mid-intercostal long-cells having markedly sinuous walls. Microhairs present; clearly two-celled; panicoid-type; 55–88 microns long. Microhair apical cells 18–29 microns long. Stomata common. Subsidiaries low to high dome-shaped, or triangular. Intercostal short-cells common (paired with hook bases), or absent or very rare. Costal short-cells conspicuously in long rows (e.g. S. murieli), or neither distinctly grouped into long rows nor predominantly paired (mostly in rows of 3–5 in S. nitida). Costal silica bodies saddle shaped, or ‘panicoid-type’; when panicoid type, cross shaped, or cross shaped to dumb-bell shaped; not sharp-pointed.
Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. XyMS+. Mesophyll with arm cells; with fusoids. The fusoids external to the PBS. Leaf blade with distinct, prominent adaxial ribs; with the ribs more or less constant in size (broad, low). Midrib having complex vascularization. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups; in simple fans and associated with colourless mesophyll cells to form deeply-penetrating fans. All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present.
Cytology. Chromosome base number, x = 12. Chromosomes ‘small’.
Taxonomy. Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. About 50 species; Asia and Madagascar. Shade species and species of open habitats. Woodland and open places, low and high altitudes.
Holarctic and Paleotropical. Boreal and Tethyan. Indomalesian and Polynesian. Euro-Siberian and Eastern Asian. Indian, Indo-Chinese, and Malesian.
References, etc. Leaf anatomical: Metcalfe 1960, for ‘Arundinaria’ murieli and ‘A.’ nitida.
Special comments. Clayton and Renvoize (1986) and Soderstrom and Ellis (1987) present very different generic interpretations of the species associated with Sinarundinaria, Otatea, Yushania, Fargesia and Thamnocalamus (q.v.), without providing generic descriptions adequate for the present purpose, and the data compiled here are inevitably very unsatisfactory. 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).