花哺鸡竹 hua bu ji zhu

Culms to 6–7 m, 3–4 cm in diam.; internodes initially deep green, becoming gray-green in age, ca. 19 cm, not white powdery, slightly scabrous; wall ca. 5 mm thick; nodal ridge weakly elevated, as prominent as sheath scar. Culm sheaths pale purple-yellow, with dense, brown spots merging into cloudy blotches at apex; auricles and oral setae absent; ligule pale brown, truncate or weakly convex, short, broad, sinuolate, ciliolate; blade reflexed, purple-green with purple-red or orange margins, narrowly triangular to linear, crinkled. Leaves 2 or 3 per ultimate branch; auricles green, densely fimbriate; oral setae green or purple-red; ligule ca. 2 mm, blade 8–11 × 1.2–2 cm. Flowering branchlets spicate, 4–7 cm; scaly bracts 2–6; spathes 4–7, glabrous, auricles minute, densely fringed with radiate setae; blade orbicular-ovate to narrowly lanceolate. Pseudospikelets solitary in each spathe. Spikelets narrowly lanceolate, 2–2.8 cm; florets 2. Glumes usually absent; rachilla internodes puberulent; lemma 1.9–2.4 cm, glabrous or slightly scabrous; palea 1.7–2.2 cm, subglabrous; lodicules 2.5–3 mm. Anthers 0.8–1.2 cm. Stigmas 3. New shoots Apr, fl. May. 2n = 48*.

* Cultivated. Fujian, Zhejiang.

The shoots are delicious, and the culms are used unsplit.