| # The grass genera of the world |

L. Watson, T.D. Macfarlane, and M.J. Dallwitz

### Borinda Stapleton

~ Arundinaria, Fargesia, Yushania

Type species: Type: B. macclureana (Bor) Stapleton.

Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial. The flowering culms leafy. Culms woody and persistent; branched above. The branching dendroid. Unicaespitose. Rhizomes pachymorph. Plants unarmed. Leaves with auricular setae, or without auricular setae. Leaf blades broad, or narrow; 6–25 mm wide; pseudopetiolate; parallel veined; cross veined; disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud. Contra-ligule present, or absent.

Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, all with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets. The spikelets hermaphrodite.

Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate; with pseudospikelets, or without pseudospikelets; (synflorescence) paniculate; open to contracted; spatheate (with rings of hairs, rather than reduced sheaths, surrounding the ultimate branchlets). Spikelets solitary; not secund; pedicellate.

Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets morphologically ‘conventional’; 30–55 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; very unequal to more or less equal (?); shorter than the spikelets; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; hairless; glabrous; shortly awned; 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 2–7. Lemmas not becoming indurated; entire; hairy (at least medianly); non-carinate; without a germination flap. Palea present; relatively long; not convolute (?); apically notched; 2-keeled. Lodicules present; 3; free; membranous; ciliate; heavily vascularized (?). Stamens 3. Anthers penicillate, or not penicillate. Ovary without a conspicuous apical appendage. Stigmas 2, or 3.

Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit not grooved.

Classification. Watson & Dallwitz (1994): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae. Soreng et al. (2015): Bambusoideae; Arundinarodae; Arundinarieae. 8 species.

Distribution, phytogeography, ecology. Tibet, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan.

Glycophytic.

References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: Stapleton (1994 and 2013).

Special comments. The original description of this genus was very inadequate (e.g. no spikelet morphology at all, and no information on several vegetative features usually employed when describing bamboos), and some of the species are known only from vegetative material. Nevertheless, this brief description, compiled from Stapleton’s (1994 and 2013) papers, may effectively distinguish it. Fruit data wanting. Anatomical data wanting.

We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, distributions of character states within any set of taxa, geographical distribution, and classifications. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.

Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., Macfarlane, T.D., and Dallwitz, M.J. 1992 onwards. The 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. Version: 15th June 2025. delta-intkey.com’.

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