二色金茅 er se jin mao

Perennial; basal sheaths woolly with creamy brown or golden hairs, or appressed pilose. Culms tufted, robust, up to 2.5 m tall, 3–4 mm in diam., pilose below inflorescence, nodes glabrous or bearded. Leaf sheaths glabrous or pilose; leaf blades linear, tough, 60–100 × 0.5–1 cm, abaxial surface pinkish gray, subglabrous to villous or sericeous, adaxial surface green, villous throughout or just above ligule, margins scabrid, base narrowed, apex finely acuminate; ligule ca. 2 mm. Racemes 4–7, subdigitate, drooping, 15–21 cm, hairs silvery or pale mauve; rachis internodes and pedicels ca. 2/3 spikelet length, ciliate. Sessile spikelet 6–6.5 mm, brown; callus hairs 2/5 spikelet length; lower glume lanceolate-oblong, back flat, villous in lower 2/3, 2 anastomosing veins between keels below apex, margins long-ciliate in upper 1/3, narrowed to emarginate apex; upper lemma narrow, puberulous on back, shortly 2-toothed; awn 2.5–3.5 cm. Anthers 3.7–4.5 mm. Fl. and fr. autumn.

Dry grassy slopes, open woodlands; 500–1500 m. SW Yunnan [Myanmar, N Thailand].

This is a large, handsome species of apparently restricted distribution.