Bambusa boniopsis
Bambusa boniopsis McClure, Lingnan Univ. Sci. Bull. No. 9, 1940: 7.
Thai name: ไผ่บอนนี (phai bonni).
Chinese name: 妈竹 (ma zhu).
English name: Bonnie Bamboo.
Distribution: THAILAND: introduced, in cultivation, rare. — CHINA (South): Hainan; in ravines and forests, around villages.
Descriptions:
(1) "Culms 3–6 m, 1–2.5 cm in diam., basally erect, apically suberect; internodes slightly curved or straight, 23–30 cm, initially thinly white powdery, glabrous; wall slightly thick; nodes flat, from mid-culm upward with a ring of white powder above sheath scar; branching from 3rd to 5th node up. Branches several to many, clustered, central dominant. Culm sheaths deciduous, rigid when dry, glabrous, apex slightly slanted outward and asymmetrically broadly arched; auricles unequal, minutely wrinkled, usually partly covered by blade base; larger auricle usually elliptic to broadly elliptic, 1–1.3 × 0.7–0.8 cm; smaller auricle usually elliptic, ca. 0.4 × 0.2 cm; oral setae very fine, curved; ligule ca. 1.5 mm, margin erose, very fine ciliolate; blade deciduous, erect, asymmetrically ovate-lanceolate, longer than sheath, abaxially initially thinly white powdery, glabrous, base rounded, swollen on one side, obviously narrower than sheath apex. Leaf blade linear-lanceolate, 10–16 × 1.4–2 cm, abaxially glaucous, densely pubescent, adaxially sparsely deciduously long hispid. … [flowers and seeds described]." — Flora of China [#1303].
(2) Kew GrassBase [#1335].
Images: Line drawing in Flora of China [#1303].
Images: Photos in BambooWeb.info [#1340]; BambooDownUnder (habit); BambooGrove (habit).
Bambusa boniopsis (BS-0438): Young dried culm-leaf attached to the internode (left), apex of a dried culm-leaf, abaxial surface (right)
Specimen: BS-0438 [W3] (living plant), received from cultivated stock from the USA, Jan. 2010.
Uses: Plants for hedges and screening.
Cultivation requirements: Grows in part shade to full sun, best on 5.5–6.5 pH soil, sandy loam to clay loam, normal moisture-retentive to moist with good drainage.
Comments: Bambusa fecunda is considered synonymous with Bambusa boniopsis in the Flora of China. However, the culm-leaves of the plants obtained under these two names are quite different.