Guadua Amplexifolia

HABIT:

• Perennial; caespitose.
• Rhizomes short; pachymorph.
• Culms 1000–2000 cm long; 60–100 mm diam.; woody.
• Culm-internodes terete; thick-walled, or solid; mid-green; distally glabrous.
• Lateral branches dendroid.
• Culm-sheaths glabrous; without auricles, or auriculate; setose on shoulders; shoulders with 4–8 mm long hairs.
• Culm-sheath blade lanceolate; 5–20 cm long; brown pubescent.
• Leaf-sheaths glabrous on surface.
• Leaf-sheath oral hairs setose.
• Leaf-sheath auricles falcate; 20–35 mm long.
• Ligule an eciliate membrane; 0.5 mm long.
• Collar with external ligule.
• Leaf-blade base with a brief petiole-like connection to sheath.
• Leaf-blades lanceolate; 16–24 cm long; 30–51 mm wide.
• Leaf-blade surface glabrous.
• Leaf-blade apex acuminate.

 

INFLORESCENCE:

• Synflorescence bractiferous; clustered at the nodes; in untidy tufts; lax; with glumaceous subtending bracts; prophyllate below lateral spikelets; leafy between clusters.

 

FERTILE SPIKELETS:

• Spikelets comprising 6–10 fertile florets; with diminished florets at the apex.
• Spikelets linear; laterally compressed; 35–60 mm long; 4–5 mm wide; breaking up at maturity; disarticulating below each fertile floret.

 

GLUMES:

• Glumes several; 3–4 empty glumes; persistent; shorter than spikelet.
• Upper glume ovate; 4–8 mm long.

 

FLORETS:

• Fertile lemma ovate; 14–16 mm long; coriaceous; without keel; 21–25 -veined.
• Lemma surface glabrous, or pilose.
• Lemma apex apiculate.
• Palea 0.9 length of lemma.
• Palea keels winged; conspicuously winged; ciliolate.
• Apical sterile florets resembling fertile though underdeveloped.

 

FLOWER:

• Lodicules 3.
• Anthers 6; 6–7 mm long.
• Stigmas 3.
• Ovary umbonate.

 

FRUIT:

• Caryopsis with adherent pericarp.

 

DISTRIBUTION:

• Colombia
• Costa Rica
• El Salvador
• Honduras
• Mexico
• Nicaragua
• Venezuela

Sources:
GrassBase - The Online World Grass Flora
INBAR (International Network for Bamboo and Rattan)