Bambusa lituiformis

Type: Thailand, Bueng Kan Province, Seka District, 28 May 2022, S. Sungkaew & A. Teerawatananon 1684, holotype (BKF); cf. W. Arthan & al., in Kew Bulletin, 2023 [#1396].

Thai name: ไผ่กนก (phai kanok), alternative spelling: ไผ่กระหนก (phai kranok). Kanok is a traditional Thai pattern of distinct wavy lines within an upright, usually triangular outline and is used in art such as drawings and architecture. The culm-leaf auricles with their undulated bristles resemble a kanok.

Distribution: THAILAND (North-East): Bueng Kan Province, in open areas of semi-evergreen forest on sandstone bedrock, 186–220 m altitude, rare, possibly endemic.

Description: "Perennial arborescent bamboo, unarmed. Rhizomes a pachymorph with short necks, sympodial; forming a dense clump with relatively well-spaced culms. Culms erect, 4 – 7 m tall, tips drooping; nodes not swollen; nodal line horizontal, more or less the same diam. as the adjacent internodes; supranodal ridge inconspicuous; aerial roots absent; internodes terete, green and greyish-green when mature, 30 – 50 cm long, 1 – 3 cm in diam., covered with white wax when young, glabrous when mature; mid-culm walls 1 – 1.5 mm thick. Branch buds at each culm node solitary. Branches developing from the second quarter from the base or from around mid-culm upwards. Mid-culm branch complements with several branches per node; middle branch dominant and somewhat bigger than the rest; associated secondary branches few; basal, smaller branchlets few; those from lower nodes often of 1 dominant main branch, very often with no further basal branches. Culm leaves deciduous; sheaths purplish-green to yellowish-green when mature, 5 – 7.5 cm long, covered with white wax and sparsely hispid brown to black hairs or glabrous when young, glabrous when mature, margins ciliate; blades erect, purplish-green when young, turning green when mature, broadly triangular, 4 – 6 × 6 – 7 cm, base slightly inflated, more or less asymmetrical, as broad as the sheath apex, glabrous; auricles contiguous with the base of the blade, curve-shaped, 3 – 6 mm long, oral setae, 0.7 – 1.1 cm long, curved in a Kanok pattern (Figs 1B & 2J, and see vernacular name); ligules 0.5 – 1.0 mm long, margin irregularly denticulate. Foliage leaves 7 – 17 per branchlet; sheaths 2.5 – 5 cm long, glabrous; blades lanceolate, 10 – 25 × 1 – 2.5 cm, apex acuminate, glabrous on both sides, abaxially glaucous; auricles narrow lobed, lobes 3 – 5 mm long, margin equipped with bristles, 1 – 1.5 cm long; ligules inconspicuous. … [flowers described, seeds unknown]". — W. Arthan & al., in Kew Bulletin, 2023 [#1396].

Images: Photos and line drawings in W. Arthan & al., l.c., 2023 [#1396].

Uses: No known records.