| # The grass genera of the world |

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

### Sinarundinaria Nakai

Latin for Chinese Arundinaria (q.v.).

~ Included in Fargesia by Soderstrom and Ellis 1987

Including Ampelocalamus Chen, Wen and Sheng, Burmabambusa Keng f., Chimonocalamus Hsueh and Yi, Drepanostachyum Keng f.; interpreted by Clayton and Renvoize (1986) to include Yushania and Otatea as well

Excluding Otatea, Yushania

Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial; rhizomatous. The flowering culms leafy. Culms woody and persistent; branched above. Buds from which the primary culm branches arise (where recorded) 1, or 12–20 (D. ampullare). Primary branches 5–20; in an irregular line, or clumped. The branching dendroid. Culm nodes 1 ridged. Culm leaf sheaths present; deciduous, or persistent; not leaving a persistent girdle; conspicuously auriculate, or not conspicuously auriculate. Culm leaves with conspicuous blades. Culm leaf blades linear, or lanceolate, or triangular. Culm internodes solid, or hollow. Rhizomes pachymorph. Plants conspicuously armed (Chimonocalamus), or unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated. Leaf blades linear-lanceolate; broad to narrow; to 12 mm wide (in S. nitida); pseudopetiolate; cross veined; disarticulating from the sheaths. Ligule a fringed membrane; very short.

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

Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate, or indeterminate (e.g, Ampelocalamus sp.); with pseudospikelets (mostly), or without pseudospikelets; a single raceme, or paniculate; spatheate; not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelets pedicellate.

Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes; disarticulating between the florets. Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret; the rachilla extension often with incomplete florets.

Glumes two; very unequal; shorter than the spikelets; shorter than the adjacent lemmas; similar. Upper glume 7 nerved. Spikelets often 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 1–5. Lemmas not becoming indurated; awnless to awned. Awns 1; median; apical; non-geniculate. Lemmas hairless; 7 nerved. Palea present; relatively long; awnless, without apical setae; several nerved (between and outside the keels); 2-keeled. Palea keels wingless. Lodicules present; 3; free; membranous; ciliate. Stamens 3; with free filaments (mostly), or monadelphous (Ampelocalamus patellaris). Ovary without a conspicuous apical appendage. Stigmas 2.

Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae present. Intercostal papillae over-arching the stomata; several per cell (small, usually on row per long-cell). Mid-intercostal long-cells having markedly sinuous walls. Microhairs present; clearly two-celled; panicoid-type; 55–88 microns long. Microhair apical cells 18–29 microns long. Stomata common. Subsidiaries low to high dome-shaped, or triangular. Intercostal short-cells common (paired with hook bases), or absent or very rare. Costal short-cells conspicuously in long rows (e.g. S. murieli), or neither distinctly grouped into long rows nor predominantly paired (mostly in rows of 3–5 in S. nitida). Costal silica bodies saddle shaped, or ‘panicoid-type’; when panicoid type, cross shaped, or cross shaped to dumb-bell shaped; not sharp-pointed.

Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. XyMS+. Mesophyll with arm cells; with fusoids. The fusoids external to the PBS. Leaf blade with distinct, prominent adaxial ribs; with the ribs more or less constant in size (broad, low). Midrib having complex vascularization. Bulliforms present in discrete, regular adaxial groups; in simple fans and associated with colourless mesophyll cells to form deeply-penetrating fans. All the vascular bundles accompanied by sclerenchyma. Combined sclerenchyma girders present.

Cytology. Chromosome base number, x = 12. Chromosomes ‘small’.

Classification. Watson & Dallwitz (1994): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae. Soreng et al. (2015): Bambusoideae; Arundinarodae; Arundinarieae (including synonymous genera); Arundinariinae. About 50 species.

Distribution, phytogeography, ecology. Asia and Madagascar.

Shade species and species of open habitats. Woodland and open places, low and high altitudes.

References, etc. Leaf anatomical: Metcalfe 1960, for ‘Arundinaria’ murieli and ‘A.’ nitida.

Special comments. Clayton and Renvoize (1986) and Soderstrom and Ellis (1987) present very different generic interpretations of the species associated with Sinarundinaria, Otatea, Yushania, Fargesia and Thamnocalamus (q.v.), without providing generic descriptions adequate for the present purpose, and the data compiled here are inevitably very unsatisfactory. Fruit data wanting.

Illustrations. • Sinarundinaria falcata and S. kharsiana (~ Drepanostachyum spp.: as Arundinaria, 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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