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Borinda angustissima 

culm sheath apex glabrous culm sheath base and node leaf sheath with prominent oral setae
new shoot leaf sheaths scarce oral setae on culm sheath branching dark branchlets dark culm sheath culm wax quickly lost leaf blade abaxial proximally pilose
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foliage and yellow culm leaf blades
see origin in Google Earth
see account in Flora of China
see listing in ABS Species & Sources List
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See description in Kew's GrassBase - The Online World Grass Flora
See description in Kew's GrassBase - The Online World Grass Flora
Bamboo Lexicon entry

Slender Borinda

Borinda angustissima  (T. P. Yi) Stapleton, Sida 22(1): 331. 2006

 Synonym: Fargesia angustissima T. P. Yi, J. Bamboo Res. 4(2): 21. 1985.   

  Missouri Botanical Garden's Tropicos Database of Names  TROPICOS

    International Plant Names Index   IPNI

   Multilingual Multiscript Plant Names Database  MMPND

 POWO

Plants forming dense clumps. Rhizomes pachymorph, neck 1--3 cm long. Culms  to 5 m, to 1.5 cm in diam., pendulous; internodes to 30 cm, terete, lightly white-powdery at first, becoming yellow, longitudinal ribs very prominent, wall 1.5--2.5 mm thick; nodes with weakly prominent supra-nodal ridge, sheath scar prominent; branches 5--10, slender. Culm sheaths deciduous, far longer than internodes, distally papery and sparsely brown-setulose, apex narrow and linear, longitudinal ribs greatly prominent and red-brown, margins initially densely ciliate; auricles absent; oral setae scarce, erect, white-grey, to 3 mm; ligule ca. 1 mm, truncate or convex, glabrous; blade linear, revolute, glabrous, readily deciduous, margins usually serrulate. Leaves 3--5 per ultimate branch; sheath glabrous or apically slightly pilose; auricles absent or small; oral setae several, erect or spreading, yellow-brown, ca. 2--3 mm; ligule short, convex, to 1 mm; external ligule white-grey pubescent; blade narrowly lanceolate, to 7 × 0.7 cm, base cuneate, mid to dark green above, paler and proximally grey-pilose below, secondary veins 2--3-paired, margins spinescent-serrulate, transverse veins clear. Synflorescence being described. Name from the Latin angustus, ‘narrow’.

Elegant and pendulous, in extremely dense clumps, with slender culms and small, fine foliage leaves. In its small leaves and prominent red-brown culm sheath veins it is superficially similar to Fargesia nitida, but taller, more pendulous, and actually differing in practically all the finer details. The introduction from Wolong (illustrated here) is an extremely pretty bamboo with culms that become golden yellow, purple branchlets, pale unspotted striped culm sheaths with pale hairs, reddened branchlets and leaf sheaths, proximally densely pubescent lower leaf blade surfaces, and dark green leaves.

In the US plants from Waddick’s original Wolong introduction are cultivated, and that is what is described and illustrated above. The original introduction flowered from 2021. A second introduction, also identified as Borinda/Fargesia angustissima, from Pingwu, north of Wolong, to Holland in 1997 is very similar but has denser, darker culm sheath hairs arising from dark spots, and maybe somewhat thicker culms. The species is thought to have last flowered in China in the 1980s. The Pingwu introduction is the form cultivated in Europe under the name Borinda/Fargesia angustissima. It is usually sold from in vitro propagation, considered by some to produce weaker and more tender plants.

Sometimes considered a subspecies of Borinda ferax, although that species was described from near Kangding, on the border of Sichuan with Tibet, substantially to the SW of Wolong & Pingwu. As with all recent introductions from China, the species identification requires further investigation.

 

Source in Google Earth Borinda angustissima was first introduced from Wolong, Sichuan by J. Waddick in 1989.

[albocerea] [angustissima] [contracta] [frigidorum] [frigidorum aff] [macclureana] [nujiangensis] [papyrifera] [perlonga] [utilis]