BAMBOOS OF INDI A

Bamboos of India
➤
Fig. 113. T. regia.
A - leafy branch; B - leaf;
C - flowering branch; D - culmsheath;
E & F - empty glumes;
G & H - paleas of lower flower;
I & J - paleas of upper flower;
K - stamen; L - pistil;
M - a portion of culm;
N - new shoot.
line 113
DESCRIPTION
A very graceful, tufted bamboo.
Culms 8-10 m high and 4-5 cm
diameter, straight, thick-walled,
usually covered with the
persistent culm-sheaths;
internodes 20-30 cm long,
green. Culm-sheaths 20-25 cm
long, 10-20 cm broad, covered
with fine white pubescence on
the back, attenuate into a 3.5-4
cm broad, truncate top; ligule 2
mm high, narrow, slightly or
irregularly toothed, finely ciliate;
auricles short, triangular; blade
10-13 cm long, erect, narrowly
triangular, edges incurved. In young shoots, blades tapering at the base, linear-lanceolate, sheath long with brown hairy
margin. Leaves 8-15 cm long and 0.8-1.2 cm broad, narrow, linear, glabrous, short-stalked. Inflorescence a large graceful
panicle, with many thin branchlets, bearing bracteate clusters of few fertile spikelets which are pedicellate and intermixed
with sterile ones, the bract boat-shaped, glabrous, truncate at tip; rachis smooth, very fine wiry, curved, clavate. Spikelet
nearly white, 3-flowered; empty glumes 2, 7.5-10 mm long, ovate-acute, covered at the base with long, white pubescence,
about 4-nerved on either side; palea of lower flowers narrow, 2-keeled, ciliate on the keels, cleft half-way down into
narrow ciliate tails, that of the uppermost flower not keeled but bi-mucronate, concave, striate, glabrous, gradually
attenuate into a long beak, longer than the flowering glume; lodicules none. Stamens exserted; filaments free; anthers
pale yellow, narrow, connective produced into a conical purple mucro. Ovary at first oval, afterwards depressed, flattened,
attenuated,curved stigmas. Caryopsis ca.5 x 2.5 mm, cylindric, surmounted by an yellowish, glabrous soft apex which
is produced into a long beak, sulcate on one side.
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