| # The grass genera of the world |

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

### Metasasa W.T. Lin

~ Acidosasa

Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial; rhizomatous. The flowering culms leafy. Culms 300–700 cm high; woody and persistent; to 1–3 cm in diameter; cylindrical; branched above. Rhizomes leptomorph. Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated; non-auriculate; without auricular setae. Leaf blades lanceolate to ovate-lanceolate; broad; 25–50 mm wide (and 13–26 cm long); rolled; pseudopetiolate; cross veined; disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud. Ligule present; about 3 mm long.

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

Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate; without pseudospikelets; few spikeleted (6–8); paniculate; open. Spikelet-bearing axes persistent. Spikelets solitary; not secund; pedicellate.

Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets 30–70 mm long; compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes; disarticulating between the florets; with conventional internode spacings. Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret; hairy; the rachilla extension with incomplete florets. Hairy callus absent.

Glumes two; very unequal (judging from the original illustration); shorter than the spikelets; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; awnless; carinate; similar. Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets distal to the female-fertile florets.

Female-fertile florets 7–9. Lemmas not becoming indurated; entire; pointed (acuminate); awnless; hairy; without a germination flap; 13–18 nerved. Palea present; relatively long; entire to apically notched; awnless, without apical setae; several nerved (4–5 nerved between the keels); 2-keeled. Lodicules present; 3; free; membranous; glabrous; not toothed (lanceolate); heavily vascularized. Stamens 6. Anthers 5–5.5 mm long. Ovary without a conspicuous apical appendage. Styles fused (into one). Stigmas 2, or 3 (one of the two stigmas illustrated as being deeply two-lobed).

Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit medium sized (about 8mm long). Hilum seemingly long-linear.

Classification. Watson & Dallwitz (1994): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae. Soreng et al. (2015): cf. Bambusoideae (as a synonym?). 1 species.

Distribution, phytogeography, ecology. Guangdong, China.

References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: Lin 1988.

Special comments. Anatomical data wanting.

Illustrations. • Metasasa carinata: Lin (1988), www.yuanlin.com.

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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