Dendrocalamus pachycladus

Specimen: BS-0096 [-] (living plants), received received as "#4, Dendrocalamus pachycladus, 江竹 (jiāng zhú)" from FMXG, China, 25 Jan. 2013.

Characteristics: Habit unicaespitose, dense clump. Rhizome pachymorph, short. Culms erect, straight, bending outward above; ultimate size not yet known (length ca. 9 m, diameter 5 cm, in June 2021). Young shoots conical; sheath peach-colored, with brown hairs; culm-leaf blades erect to patent, dull purplish-black; emerge late. Culm-internodes terete, 20–35 cm long, initially farinose, thus appearing bluish, glabrous, becoming mid-green to dark green with age; walls thick. Culm-nodes not prominent; nodal line horizontal, dipping slightly below the bud; sheath scar marginally protruding, 0.5 mm; supranodal line obscure, without a ridge, ca. 10 mm above the nodal line; with a narrow whitish to greenish sericeous band below the nodal line when young; aerial roots none. Branch-buds solitary, large, broad-ovate, from the basal node up. Branches several, slender, subequal, one slightly dominant; unbranched on the basal and lower culm; branching intravaginal; rebranching. Culm-leaves deciduous. Culm-leaf sheaths triangular to parabolic, little longer than half the length of the internode, leathery, peach-colored to purplish and apically thinly farinose when young, changing to green, straw-colored when dry, with brown hairs mainly in the middle and lower part of the sheath; apex narrowly truncate; margins pale to brown ciliate, partly eciliate. Culm-leaf auricles rim-like, waved, reflexed, dark purplish when young, with a few short, waved bristles. Culm-leaf ligule prominent, dark purplish when young, lacerate, ciliate. Culm-leaf blades leathery, erect to deflexed, persistent, narrowly lanceolate to narrow-triangular, a third to a fourth as long as the sheath, usually glabrous. Foliage-leaves (7) 9–12 (15) per branchlet. Foliage-leaf sheaths keeled on the back, light green to orange when young, glabrous to pale hirsute; apex truncate, glabrous. Foliage-leaf auricles inconspicuous low rims, orange when young, without oral setae. Foliage-leaf ligule ca. 1 mm high, orange when young, margin subentire. Foliage-leaf blades long-lanceolate, 23–36 × 2.5–5.5 cm, glabrous on both surfaces; base rounded to wedge-shaped; apex attenuate; one margin antrorsely scabrous, the other smooth; midvein distinct, light green; pseudopetiole 5–7 mm long.

Comments: It is not certain whether BS-0096 is correctly identified as Dendrocalamus pachycladus. The photos in Iconographia Bambusoidearum Sinicarum (T. P. Yi & al., 2008 [#1178]) show an exceptionally large, round branch-bud, as well as a very dominant branch. These features could not be observed in BS-0096.