米筛竹 mi shai zhu

Culms 3–8 m, 1–4.5 cm in diam., apically slightly drooping; internodes 30–70 cm, initially thinly white powdery, sparsely stiffly pale or dark brown strigose; wall thin; nodes flat, basal 5 nodes usually with rings of gray-white silky hairs below and above sheath scar; branching from 8th to 10th node up. Branches several to many, clustered, 3 central dominant. Culm sheaths deciduous, leathery, rigid, broadly arched, uniformly stiffly dull brown strigose, apex slanted on outer side, asymmetrical; auricles unequal, slightly wrinkled, larger ones oblong or lanceolate, 1–1.5 × 0.4–0.5 cm, ends subrounded and slanted downward, smaller auricle subovate, ca. 1/3 size of larger one, ends slightly ascending; oral setae fine, curved, long; ligule ca. 1 mm, irregularly dentate or long fimbriate; blade erect, slightly asymmetrically ovate to ovate-triangular, 1/3–1/2 length of sheath, base slightly cordate, narrowed and joined with auricles for 2–3 mm, abaxially very sparsely brown hairy, adaxially scabrous, apex acuminate, apiculate. Leaf blade linear to lanceolate, 8–18 × 1–2 cm, abaxially densely villous, adaxially glabrous. Pseudospikelets lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, 2–3.5 × 0.4–0.5 cm; prophylls ca. 2.5 mm, keels ciliolate; gemmiferous bracts 2 or 3, ovate, to 7 mm, glabrous, 15–17-veined, apex obtuse and mucronate. Lemma ovate-elliptic, ca. 1.2 cm, glabrous, 17–19-veined, apex acute, mucronate; palea lanceolate, ca. 1.1 cm, slightly shorter than lemma, keels not ciliate, 5- or 6-veined between and 3- or 4-veined on either side of keels, margin irregularly dentate, apex 3-fid and with a cluster of white long hairs; lodicules 3, unequal, anterior 2 spatulate, ca. 3 mm, margins long ciliate, posterior 1 nearly obovate-elliptic, ca. 1.6 mm. Filaments slender; anthers ca. 4 mm. Ovary ovoid, ca. 1.5 mm, base stalked, apex thickened and hispid; style ca. 0.5 mm, hispid; stigmas 3, ca. 5 mm. Mature caryopsis unknown.

* Usually cultivated, river banks, low hills, around villages. Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi, Taiwan, Zhejiang.