Chusquea liebmannii

Synonym: Chusquea heydei Hitchc., Proc. Biol. Soc. Washington 40, 1927: 80.

Thai name: No known records.

Distribution: THAILAND (North): introduced, in cultivation, rare. — MEXICO (South). — GUATEMALA. — EL SALVADOR. — COSTA RICA.

Descriptions:

(1) L. G. Clark in Syst. Bot. Monogr. 27, 1989: 81.

(2) "Habit: Perennial. Culms arching, or scandent; 300-1000 cm long; 10-25 mm diam.; woody; with root thorns from the nodes. Culm-internodes terete; solid; 10.5-27.5 cm long; yellow, or brown; smooth. Lateral branches dendroid; infravaginal. Bud complement 100. Branch complement many; girdling the culm; with subequal branches; thinner than stem. Culm-sheaths deciduous; 9.2-21.5 cm long; antrorsely scabrous. Culm-sheath ligule 0.5 mm high. Culm-sheath blade triangular; indistinctly demarcated from sheath; erect; 2.5-9 cm long; scabrid. Leaves 4-9 per branch. Ligule an eciliate membrane; 0.5-1 mm long; truncate. Collar with external ligule. Leaf-blade base with a brief petiole-like connection to sheath; petiole 0.1-0.3 cm long; petiole pubescent. Leaf-blades lanceolate; 2.7-8.5 cm long; 4-15 mm wide. Leaf-blade venation without cross veins. Leaf-blade surface glabrous. … [flowers and seeds described]". — KewScience POWO [#1305].

(3) Kew GrassBase [#1335].

Images: Photos in BambooWeb.info [#1340]; in KewScience POWO. [#1305].

Uses: As an ornamental garden plant and for landscaping.

Cultivation requirements: Not recorded, but supposed to grow best in cool and not too shady places. Its natural habitat is the more or less open vegetation of tropical deciduous forests and disturbed cloud forests between 400 and 1,400 m altitude.

Specimens: BS-0802 [S3] (living plants), raised from seeds. The seeds from Veracruz, Mexico, collected by R. M. O. as "Chusquea liebmannii", collected in June 2014, and received on 24 July 2014; BS-0836, same source, collected in June 2015, and received on 11 and 13 July 2015.

Seed viability: Unknown, viability is assumed to last at least a few months.

Seed weight: Not recorded.

Seed germination: About 30 seedlings can be expected from 1.0 g of seeds (test 140724 and test 150724).

Comments:

(1) The description by KewScience POWO cited above matches well the vegetative characteristics of the seedlings at Bambusetum Baan Sammi. Here are a few minor additions: Rhizomes are short, pachymorph. Young shoots emerge from March/April to July. The tips of the root thorns are blunt. The culms are widely arching, and some of their nodes usually develop a single very thick and long branch, often as thick as the main culm.

(2) This is the only Chusquea species from which two plants have been kept alive under intensive care over a long period in the Bambusetum Baan Sammi, and several other plants of this species died in the period before that. On 31 July 2022, one of the two surviving plants was given to Mr. Kittisak for later transfer to the Kamphaeng Saen Campus of Kasetsart University, Nakhon Pathom Province, Central Thailand, for the purpose of planting. Whether this species could be managed to survive in the tropical climate prevailing there is very questionable. The last plant remaining at Bambusetum Baan Sammi developed slowly, not least because the culms are not very long-lived as they dry up and die after two years. It is far from certain whether this species will be able to establish itself in the long term at the current site, where the plant has only 6 living culms so far (30 Aug. 2023).