俯竹 fu zhu

Culms to 14 m, 7–8 cm in diam., apically slightly drooping; internodes 30–35 cm, initially white powdery, lower internodes slightly flexuose, basal internodes often with 2 or 3 faint yellow stripes; wall very thick; nodes with rings of gray-white silky hairs below and above sheath scar, basal nodes with short aerial roots; branching from ca. 4th node up. Branches many, clustered, central 3 dominant. Culm sheaths deciduous, usually less than 1/2 as wide as long at base, leathery, densely stiffly dull brown strigose, apex subtruncate; auricles unequal, not slanted downward along sheath margin, 1.5–2.5 × 1.3–1.5 cm, one tall and ovate, one low and oblong, undulate, wrinkled; oral setae long, undulate; ligule ca. 5 mm, dentate, shortly fimbriate; blade erect, slightly asymmetrical, broadly triangular, base slightly narrowed and joined to auricles for ca. 1 cm, nearly 3/4 width of sheath apex, both surfaces stiffly pale hairy, apex acutely acuminate. Leaf blade broadly linear or linear-lanceolate, 15–19 × 1.4–1.7 cm, abaxially pale gray, densely villous, adaxially deep green, glabrous. Inflorescence unknown from China.

Slopes. Yunnan [Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam].

Often misidentified as Bambusa nutans subsp. cupulata (B. teres in this account), B. tulda is distinguished by its smaller, more erect auricles, brown rather than black culm sheath hairs, persistent, uncupped culm sheath blade, and shorter, thicker walled culms with stripes on the basal internodes. It was treated as B. nutans Munro in FRPS (9(1): 78. 1996).