| # The grass genera of the world |

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

### Gelidocalamus T.H. Wen

~ Indocalamus

Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial; rhizomatous and caespitose. Culms woody and persistent; cylindrical; branched above. Primary branches 7–12(–20) (rarely more). The branching simple (according to FOC), or suffrutescent, or dendroid (?). Culm leaf sheaths present; deciduous, or persistent; conspicuously auriculate, or not conspicuously auriculate. Culm leaves with conspicuous blades. Culm leaf blades linear (usually), or lanceolate. Erect, pluricaespitose. Rhizomes leptomorph. Leaves cauline, 1–5 per branch, auriculate, or non-auriculate; without auricular setae. Leaf blades lanceolate, or elliptic; broad; 8–23 cm long, 13–30 mm wide; pseudopetiolate; cross veined. Ligule an unfringed membrane, or a fringed membrane. Contra-ligule absent.

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

Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate; large, terminal on leafy branches, paniculate; open. Spikelets solitary; pedicellate.

Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets morphologically ‘conventional’; 5–14 mm long; where recorded, oblong, or lanceolate; mostly green; disarticulating between the florets; with distinctly elongated rachilla internodes between the florets. Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret; the rachilla extension with incomplete florets.

Glumes persistent, two; shorter than the spikelets; pointed; awnless; lanceolate, chartaceous, similar. Lower glume convex on the back. Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets distal to the female-fertile florets. The distal incomplete florets merely underdeveloped to clearly specialised and modified in form. Spikelets without proximal incomplete florets.

Female-fertile florets 2–5. Lemmas lanceolate; chartaceous, similar in texture to the glumes; smooth; not becoming indurated; entire; pointed (acuminate); awnless; laterally compressed, non-carinate; 5 nerved, or 7 nerved. Palea present; relatively long (equalling the lemma); entire; truncate, awnless, without apical setae; 2-keeled. Lodicules present; 3; ciliate, or glabrous. Stamens 3. Ovary apically glabrous; probably without a conspicuous apical appendage. Stigmas 1, or 2.

Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit beaked; obovoid. Pericarp fused. Seed endospermic.

Classification. Watson & Dallwitz (1994): genus not recognised. Soreng et al. (2015): Bambusoideae; Arundinarodae; Arundinarieae; Arundinariinae. 12 species (9 known from vegetative material only).

Distribution, phytogeography, ecology. Temperate Asia, China.

Holarctic.

References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: Clayton et al. (2016), GrassBase; Zhu & Stapleton, Flora of China.

Special comments. This compilation mainly represents G. multifolius, G. stellatus and G. tessellatus. 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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