大眼竹 da yan zhu

Culms 6–12 m, 4–6 cm in diam., basally straight, apically slightly drooping; internodes 30–40 cm, fistulose, initially thinly white powdery, sometimes sparsely deciduously stiffly hairy below nodes; wall ca. 5 mm thick; nodes slightly prominent, basal several with rings of gray-white silky hairs below and above sheath scar; branching from 2nd or 3rd node up. Branches several or many, clustered, central 3 dominant. Culm sheaths deciduous, triangular to narrowly triangular, leathery, glabrous or sometimes very sparsely stiffly strigose, apex long slanted along one side, extremely asymmetrical, arched; auricles extremely asymmetrical, of various shapes, rigid, wrinkled; larger auricle extremely decurrent, oblanceolate to narrowly oblong, 5–6.5 × ca. 1.5 cm; smaller auricle suborbicular or oblong, ca. 1 cm in diam., or sometimes thoroughly joined to blade base; oral setae undulate; ligule 3–5 mm, irregularly dentate or laciniate, shortly fimbriate; blade deciduous, erect, asymmetrical, triangular to narrowly triangular, base slightly narrowed and then extending outward to join auricles, nearly 3/5 width of sheath apex, abaxially sparsely stiffly deciduous-hairy. Leaf blade abaxially green, lanceolate to broadly lanceolate, usually 12–25 × 1.4–2.5 cm, abaxially densely pubescent, adaxially glabrous. Pseudospikelets sessile, clustered at each node of flowering branches and branchlets, linear, 2.5–5.5 cm, with several bud-bearing bracts at base; florets 5 or 6; rachilla segments flat, 3–4 mm, apex inflated and ciliolate. Glumes 1, with very small purple spots, oblong, 9–10 mm, 11-veined, glabrous, apex acute, apiculate; lemma similar to glumes, oblong, 1.2–1.3 cm, 13–15-veined; palea lanceolate, ca. 1.1 cm, keels ciliolate toward tip, 4-veined between and 2-veined on either side of keels; lodicules 3, unequal, anterior 2 narrow, ca. 2 mm, apex long ciliate, posterior 1 larger, broadly ovate or suborbicular, ca. 2 mm. Anthers ca. 5 mm, apex bifid. Ovary subglobose, ca. 1 mm in diam., apex hispidulous; style very short, hispidulous; stigmas 3. Caryopsis initially nearly obovoid, ca. 5 mm, apex hispidulous with persistent style base.

* Usually cultivated along river banks and around villages. Guangdong, Guangxi.