Sphaerobambos S. Dransfield
Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial. The flowering culms leafless, or leafy. Culms 400–600 cm high (or up to 10 m long); woody and persistent; to 0.4 cm in diameter, or 5 cm in diameter; cylindrical (?); scandent, or not scandent; branched above. Primary branches/mid-culm node 3–25 (‘few to many’). Culm sheaths deciduous in their entirety. Culm internodes hollow. Rhizomes pachymorph. Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated; auriculate; with auricular setae. Leaf blades lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate; broad; 10–60 mm wide (and 100–230 mm long); pseudopetiolate; disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence indeterminate; with pseudospikelets; a compound panicle; spatheate; a complex of ‘partial inflorescences’ and intervening foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes paniculate. Spikelets not secund; sessile to subsessile.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 6–8 mm long (S. subtilis), or 15 mm long; 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 to several (usually 3); very unequal; shorter than the spikelets; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; pointed to not pointed; awnless (but mucronate); similar. Lower glume of S. hirsuta 7 nerved. Upper glume of S. hirsuta 9 nerved. Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets distal to the female-fertile florets. The distal incomplete florets merely underdeveloped. Spikelets seemingly with proximal incomplete florets.
Female-fertile florets 3–5. Lemmas similar in texture to the glumes; not becoming indurated; entire; pointed; awnless, or mucronate; hairless; glabrous (or glabrescent); without a germination flap; 5–9 nerved. Palea present; relatively long (exceeding the lemma); tightly clasped by the lemma; entire; awnless, without apical setae; several nerved (in S. subtilis - two between the keels, two outside on each side); 2-keeled. Palea keels winged; hairy (to ciliolate). Lodicules not mentioned in the available descriptions. Stamens 6. Anthers 2.3–2.5 mm long; not penicillate; with the connective apically prolonged. Ovary hairy; with a conspicuous apical appendage. The appendage broadly conical, fleshy. Styles fused (into one). Stigmas 3.
Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit large (to about 6 mm diameter, where known); subglobose; not noticeably compressed. Hilum short. Pericarp fleshy. Embryo large. Seed ‘non-endospermic’.
Taxonomy. Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 3 species; Malesia. Mesophytic.
Paleotropical. Indomalesian. Malesian.
References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: Dransfield, S. (1989). Kew Bull. 44, 425–434.
Special comments. Anatomical 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).