| # The grass genera of the world |

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

### Fargesia Franch. sensu stricto

~ Thamnocalamus

Excluding Ampelocalamus, Chimonocalamus, Drepanostachyum, Sinarundinaria (see comments)

Habit, vegetative morphology. Perennial. Culms woody and persistent; cylindrical (by contrast with Phyllostachys); branched above. Buds from which the primary culm branches arise 1 (nearly always, where recorded), or 5–9 (in F. stenoclada). Primary branches 4–10, or 11–20; where recorded, horizontally aligned. The branching dendroid (nearly always), or suffrutescent (e.g., F. hackelii). Culm nodes without roots. Culm leaf sheaths present; deciduous, or persistent; leaving a persisten girdle, or not leaving a persistent girdle; usually not conspicuously auriculate. Culm leaves with conspicuous blades. Culm leaf blades linear, or lanceolate, or triangular. Unicaespitose. Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated. Leaf blades pseudopetiolate; cross veined; demarcated, nearly always disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud. Contra-ligule present (rarely), or absent.

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

Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate; with pseudospikelets; dense paniculate; spatheate. Spikelet-bearing axes persistent. Spikelets secund (racemes ‘almost one-sided’); pedicellate.

Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets where recorded, oblong (mostly), or oblong, or lanceolate, or linear; compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes. Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret; the rachilla extension with incomplete florets.

Glumes two to several; hairy (‘slightly pilose’); pointed (acuminate); awnless; similar. Lower glume 5 nerved. Upper glume 7–9 nerved. Spikelets with incomplete florets. The incomplete florets distal to the female-fertile florets. The distal incomplete florets usually 2; merely underdeveloped.

Female-fertile florets usually 2. Lemmas acuminate; similar in texture to the glumes; not becoming indurated; entire; pointed; without tessellate venation. Palea present (without tessellate venation); not convolute; 2-keeled. Lodicules present; 3; membranous; ciliate. Stamens 3. Anthers with the connective apically prolonged. Ovary where recorded, without a conspicuous apical appendage. Styles fused (into one). Stigmas 3.

Fruit, embryo and seedling. Fruit longitudinally grooved. Hilum long-linear. Endosperm containing compound starch grains.

Abaxial leaf blade epidermis. Costal/intercostal zonation conspicuous. Papillae present. Intercostal papillae over-arching the stomata; several per cell (small, variously shaped, cuticularized, mostly one row per cell). Intercostal zones with typical long-cells. Mid-intercostal long-cells rectangular; having markedly sinuous walls. Microhairs present; clearly two-celled; panicoid-type; 55–88 microns long (the basal cells longer than the apicals). Microhair basal cells 33–66 microns long. Microhair apical cells 18–29 microns long. Stomata common. Subsidiaries dome-shaped (F. nitida), or triangular (F. murielae). Intercostal short-cells common. Lacking macrohairs adaxially and abaxially, prickles present on both surfaces. Costal short-cells solitary, paired and in short rows. Costal silica bodies present and well developed; variously saddle shaped, or ‘panicoid-type’.

Transverse section of leaf blade, physiology. C3; XyMS+. Mesophyll with non-radiate chlorenchyma; with fusoids. Leaf blade with low, wide ribs. 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; forming ‘figures’.

Classification. Watson & Dallwitz (1994): Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae. Soreng et al. (2015): Bambusoideae; Arundinarodae; Arundinarieae; Arundinariinae. 2 species.

Distribution, phytogeography, ecology. China.

References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: See Stapleton, C.M.A. (1013). Bergbambos and Oldeania, new genera of African bamboos (Poaceae, Bambusoideae). PhytoKeys 25: 87–103. Leaf anatomical: Metcalfe (1960, for F. murielae and F. nitida under Arundinaria).

Special comments. Clayton and Renvoize (1986) and Soderstrom and Ellis (1987) proposed very different generic interpretations of the species in this circle of affinity. Soderstrom and Ellis (1987) proposed including Ampelocalamus Chen, Wen and Shang, Chimonocalamus Hsueh and Yi, Drepanostachyum Keng f. and Sinarundinaria Nakai, and spoke elsewhere (1988) of ‘fargesioid’ Arundinaria species. Clayton and Renvoize included the first three in Sinarundinaria, and Fargesia in Thamnocalamus. To further complicate matters, Sinarundinaria was sometimes presented as a synonym of Phyllostachys Sieb. and Zucc. Fruit data wanting. Anatomical data wanting.

Illustrations. • Fargesia spathacea, with Bonia and Oreiostachys: Camus (1913). • Camus legend.

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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