石竹仔 shi zhu zi

Culms 6–10 m, 2.5–3.5 cm in diam., apically suberect; internodes 50–60 cm, initially thinly white powdery, glabrous; wall rather thin; nodes flat, basal node with a ring of gray-white silky hairs below and above sheath scar, 2nd node with a ring of gray-white silky hairs above sheath scar; branching from 4th to 6th node up. Branches many, clustered, central slightly longer and thicker. Culm sheaths deciduous, thickly leathery, rigid, glossy, glabrous, apex slightly asymmetrically arched; auricles unequal, minutely wrinkled with obtuse ends; larger auricle oblanceolate, ca. 1.5 × 0.5 cm; smaller auricle usually pressed against blade base and wrinkled, or narrowly obovate, ca. 2/5 size of larger one; oral setae dense, deciduous, curved; ligule 2–3 mm, dentate, fringed or glabrous; blade persistent, erect, asymmetrically ovate-triangular to narrowly ovate-triangular, base slightly rounded and joined with auricles for ca. 5 mm, ca. 4/5 width of sheath apex, apex subulate, acuminate. Leaf blade linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, 8–16(–20) × 1.2–1.6(–2) cm, abaxially densely villous, adaxially glabrous. Inflorescence unknown.

* Around villages. Hainan.

Bambusa piscatorum is very similar to B. mutabilis, but has thicker culm sheaths with smaller, rigid auricles usually pressed against the blade base and not partly covered, the larger auricle oblanceolate, the smaller narrowly ovate, both with obtuse tips.