Reddish Bamboo

Culms ca. 3.5 m, ca. 2.5 cm in diam.; internodes dark green, 22–31 cm, initially thinly white powdery, glabrous; wall ca. 2 mm; nodal ridge raised, more prominent than sheath scar; sheath scar flared, margin with a dense ring of tardily deciduous, orange-red hairs. Culm sheaths light green, about as long as or slightly longer than internodes, middle to distal margins densely dark purple ciliate, base edged with orange-red hairs; auricles falcate, ± connected with sheath blade; ligule brown, truncate or slightly arcuate, long ciliate; blade erect, purple-green, broadly to narrowly triangular, flat or weakly sinuous, sometimes slightly navicular, base about as wide as ligule. Leaves 2 or 3 per ultimate branch; auricles small or inconspicuous; oral setae purple, blade linear-lanceolate, abaxially pilose especially proximally. Flowering branchlets capitate, 1–1.5 cm, with 4 or 5 scaly bracts. Spathes 2–4, 0.6–1 cm, pubescent; auricles and oral setae absent; blade minute, subulate or inconspicuous, rarely narrowly ovate-lanceolate. Pseudospikelets (1 or)2(or 3) per spathe. Spikelets ca. 1.1 cm; florets 1–3, terminal one sterile and reduced. Glumes (absent or)1–3, distally hairy; rachilla pubescent; lemma ca. 1 cm, abaxially centrally and distally densely villous; lodicules oblanceolate or elliptic, ca. 2.5 mm. Anthers ca. 4 mm. Stigmas 3. New shoots mid to late Apr, fl. Sep.

* Scrub, banks of gullies. Guangxi, Guizhou; cultivated in Henan.

Phyllostachys aristata W. T. Lin; P. aurita J. L. Lu; Sino-bambusa fimbriata T. H. Wen.