| # The grass genera of the world |

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

### Shibataea Makino

After Keita Shibata, Japanese botanist.

Habit, vegetative morphology. Small, shrubby perennial; rhizomatous. The flowering culms leafy. Culms 20–100 cm high; woody and persistent; to 0.5 cm in diameter; flattened on one side; not scandent (zigzag); branched above. Primary branches 2, or 3, or 4–10. The branching suffrutescent. Culm nodes 2 ridged. Culm leaf sheaths present; usually deciduous; not leaving a persistent girdle; not conspicuously auriculate. Culm leaves with conspicuous blades (usually), or without conspicuous blades. Culm leaf blades when developed, linear. Pluricaespitose. Rhizomes leptomorph (rhizomes metamorph type I). Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated; non-auriculate. Leaf blades broad; 12–25 mm wide; pseudopetiolate; cross veined; disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud. Ligule an unfringed membrane; truncate. Contra-ligule absent.

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

Inflorescence. Inflorescence indeterminate; with pseudospikelets (apparently - but the description seen unclear); with few-spikeleted racemes in lateral, spatheate clusters; spatheate; a complex of ‘partial inflorescences’ and intervening foliar organs (but spikelets without basal outer bracts). Spikelet-bearing axes very much reduced (of few spikelets); persistent. Spikelets not secund.

Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 15–18 mm long; where recorded, lanceolate, or linear; compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes (?). Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret.

Glumes two, or several (?); very unequal; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; pointed; awnless; similar (ovate-lanceolate). Spikelets with female-fertile florets only, or with incomplete florets (?).

Female-fertile florets 2. Lemmas ovate-lanceolate; entire; pointed; awnless; hairless; non-carinate; 9–10 nerved. Palea present; relatively long (about equalling the lemma); not convolute; entire (pointed); several nerved; 2-keeled. Palea back glabrous. Lodicules present; 3; free; membranous; ciliate; not toothed; heavily vascularized. Stamens 3. Anthers not penicillate; without an apically prolonged connective. Ovary apically glabrous; with a conspicuous apical appendage, or without a conspicuous apical appendage (often unknown). The appendage where recorded, broadly conical, fleshy. Styles fused (into one, trifid above). Stigmas 3 (feathery).

Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit medium sized (7 mm long); not noticeably compressed (cylindric).

Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae present. Intercostal papillae over-arching the stomata, or not over-arching the stomata; several per cell (one or more than one row per cell). Long-cells differing markedly in wall thickness costally and intercostally (costals thicker). Mid-intercostal long-cells having markedly sinuous walls (thin). Microhairs present; panicoid-type (but variable in shape). Stomata common. Subsidiaries low to high dome-shaped. Intercostal short-cells common; in cork/silica-cell pairs, or not paired. Costal short-cells conspicuously in long rows (but frequent long short-cells). Costal silica bodies saddle shaped, or ‘panicoid-type’ (or cuboid); often cross shaped, or butterfly shaped, or dumb-bell shaped; not sharp-pointed.

Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll with arm cells; with fusoids (but small and inconspicuous). Leaf blade with distinct, prominent adaxial ribs (low), or adaxially flat; with the ribs more or less constant in size. Midrib conspicuous; having complex vascularization. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups; in simple fans. All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present (with all the bundles); forming ‘figures’ (the large bundles).

Cytology. Chromosome base number, x = 12. 2n = 48. 4 ploid. Chromosomes ‘small’.

Classification. Watson & Dallwitz (1994): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae. Soreng et al. (2015): Bambusoideae; Arundinarodae; Arundinarieae; Arundinariinae. 3 species.

Distribution, phytogeography, ecology. Eastern Asia.

References, etc. Leaf anatomical: Metcalfe 1960.

Special comments. Description very poor. Fruit data wanting.

Illustrations. • Shibataea kumasasa (with Phyllostachys spp.: Camus, 1913). • Abbreviations for Camus (1913) figures.

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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