Schizostachyum sp. 'Kluang Supat'

Specimen: BS-0490 [W2] (living plant), received from cultivated stock from Australia, June 2010.

Characteristics (immature plant): Habit unicaespitose, dense. Rhizome pachymorph, short. Culms straight, bending outwards above, apically arching(?), ultimate height not recorded. Young shoots conical, green with a reddish tint; culm-leaf blades erect, green with a reddish tint; emerge from May to July. Culm-internodes terete, 28 cm long (possibly longer in adult plants), green to yellowish green when young, smooth, glabrous, glossy, basal internodes with faint stripes; diameter 1.2 cm (possibly thicker in adult plants); thin-walled or moderately thick-walled; lacuna without pith. Culm-nodes glabrous, smooth, flat; nodal line horizontal, slightly thickened and protruding; supranodal line obscure, with a slight ridge or without, ca. 5 mm above the nodal line; bluish below the nodal line when young; aerial roots none. Branch-buds solitary, dome-shaped, present from the basal node up. Branches many, subequal, slender; unbranched on the basal and lower culm; branching extravaginal, intravaginal or infravaginal; rebranching. Culm-leaves deciduous. Culm-leaf sheaths ca. 6–8 cm long, leathery, rigid, light green with a reddish tint toward the apex when young, light straw-colored when dry; the lower and middle part with dense hispid medium brown hairs, denser and longer toward the base, dark brown when old, upper part glabrous; apex truncate, the middle part slightly convex-rounded, symmetrical or asymmetrical; margins densely pale ciliate when young but eciliate toward the base, cilia persistent, becoming untidy and brown with age. Culm-leaf auricles low at the blade base, extending with increased height toward the ends as erect, almost rounded protruding lobes, glabrous, dark when young, light straw-colored when dry but slightly darker than the sheath, margin irregular, with 5–8 mm long irregularly waved, more or less erect bristles, the bristles initially pale becoming brown with age. Culm-leaf ligule very low, entire. Culm-leaf blades leathery, rigid, persistent or caducous, deflexed, lanceolate; ca. 1/2–3/4 as long as the sheath, the junction with the sheath apex ca. 1/3 the width of the sheath apex; adaxially somewhat hairy, abaxially glabrous; light straw-colored when dry; apex long attenuate, sharp-pointed; margins eciliate, incurved when dry. Foliage-leaves ca. 6–8 per branchlet. Foliage-leaf sheaths light green or purplish when young, glabrous, or occasionally with irregular long, more or less appressed light brown hairs; margins pale ciliate. Foliage-leaf auricles thickened low rims, the rims ending in tiny protruding lobes, rims and lobes glabrous, light green or dark purplish when young, the margin of the rims and lobes with long pale, more or less erect bristles. Foliage-leaf ligule inconspicuous; outer ligule a low thickened glabrous rim. Foliage-leaf blades long-lanceolate, medium-sized, 25–30 × 3.5–6 cm, medium to dark green and glabrous above, light to medium green and puberulent beneath; base rounded to attenuate; apex attenuate; margins antrorsely scabrous; midvein light green and proximally prominent on both surfaces; pseudopetiole glabrous, 3–8 mm long. Inflorescence developed from upper culm nodes, or developed terminally on leafy branches, each year, without affecting vegetative growth; stigma plumose, whitish or light reddish; anthers not seen; fruit not developed.

Comments: The culm-internodes are glabrous and smooth, not with short appressed whitish hairs as often in species of Schizostachyum. In internode characteristics, BS-0490 is similar to BS-0089 and BS-0573.