Bambusa arnhemica
Bambusa arnhemica F. Muell., Australas. J. Pharm. 2, 1886: 447.
Thai name: ไผ่อาร์นเหมแลนด์ (phai anhem laen).
English name: Arnhem Land Bamboo.
Distribution: THAILAND: introduced, in cultivation, rare. — AUSTRALIA: Northern Territory, endemic; along watercourses and in flats, and occasionally on fire-sheltered rocky hillsides; in areas with 1,200–1,800 mm of average annual rainfall; adapted to prolonged flooding, becoming partly deciduous during the dry season.
Culm size: Height 8–12 (20) m, diameter 8–10 (13) cm.
Description: "Habit: Perennial; caespitose. Rhizomes short; pachymorph. Culms 500–1500 cm long; woody; without nodal roots. Culm-internodes terete; hollow. Lateral branches dendroid; arising from lower culm. Culm-sheaths deciduous; 15–20 cm long; 2.5 times as long as wide; convex at apex; without auricles. Culm-sheath ligule 3 mm high; dentate. Culm-sheath blade narrowly ovate; 5 cm long. Leaves cauline; 3–6 per branch. Leaf-sheaths glabrous on surface. Leaf-sheath auricles absent. Ligule an eciliate membrane; 1 mm long. Collar with external ligule. Leaf-blade base with a brief petiole-like connection to sheath. Leaf-blades linear, or lanceolate, or oblong; 8–20 cm long; 7–18 mm wide. Leaf-blade apex acuminate. … [flowers described]." — Kew GrassBase, accessed 8 Aug. 2020 [#1335].
Images: Photos in APII; BambooWeb.info [#1340]; BambooLand (habit, culms, culm sheaths); Bamboo Down Under (habit).
Flowering and seeding: S. M. Bellairs, D. C. Franklin & N. J. Hogarth, in Biotropica, 40(1), 2008: 28-31 [1299].
Uses: Shoots for food. Culms are used by Aboriginal Australians for making aerophones, a musical instrument called didgeridoo and mago (D. C. Franklin, 2008: 185), fishing spears, and other implements; culms tend to shrink a lot but seem quite strong.
Specimen: BS-0502 [BBG] (living plant), received from cultivated stock from Australia, June 2010.
Characteristics: Rhizome pachymorph. Culms erect, arching above. Young shoots very bright, almost fluorescent, lime green. Culm-internodes mostly less than 40 cm long, maturing to orange-yellow, thick-walled. Culm-nodes with branches from the basal culm upwards. Foliage-leaf blades medium-sized, less than 20 cm long.
Cultivation requirements: Easy-growing; tolerates heat and humidity, in part shade to full sun, soil 5.5–6.5 pH, sandy loam to clay loam, normal moisture-retentive to moist soil. Plants can survive some frost, but foliage leaves may suffer damage from temperatures below +10 °C. Plants can survive a drought period (up to 4 months have been recorded) but may lose their foliage. Said to be susceptible to the mealy bug.
Comments:
(1) "There are two clones that differ sufficiently to be separate cultivars, one having pale beautiful iridescent green shoots and delicate small leaves [represented by BS-0502] and the other dark striped shoots and a longer leaf … Each grows in a region well separated from the other" [possibly, populations in riparian and non-riparian habitat] (BambooWorld).
(2) The species was described as having "thorns on the basal branches" (D. C. Franklin, 2008: 182; N. J. Hogarth, 2004: 4-10, fig. 1.3). This feature could not be observed in the immature plant BS-0502.