Plants spreading widely and forming dense thickets. Culms to 0.5-2 m tall, to 3-8 mm in diam., pluricaespitose, suberect; internodes terete, smooth, glossy with light wax below nodes, often purple-spotted when exposed; nodes with thin dark sheath scar; supranodal ridge absent, branches 3-4 at first, erect, precocious, basal internodes long. Culm sheaths thin, persistent, convexly attenuating to narrow apex, glabrous; auricles absent; oral setae scarce/absent; ligule arcuate, to 1 mm wide deep; blade small, lanceolate, deciduous, reflexed. Leaf sheaths persistent, glabrous, becoming red-purple above, margins membranous, glabrous or lightly ciliate at first; ligule obliquely truncate, c. 1 mm, glabrous and serrulate; auricles absent; oral setae scarce, deciduous, usually solitary, stout, erect or angular, 3-8 mm long; blade to 10 cm long, to 11 mm wide, thin, adaxially matt or slightly glossy, glabrous, abaxial matt, uniformly scabrous and distally sparsely long-pilose; petiole glabrous. Named from the low number of spikelets in the inflorescence (relative to species of Bashania).
A small very hardy spreading bamboo with relatively small, narrow, thin leaves, and sparse, often single, deciduous leaf sheath oral setae. Flowered in the 1990s. Seedlings in the UK reluctant to exceed 50 cm in ht, but the mother reputedly reached 2m in Germany.
Identified by Prof. Xue Ji-Ru as Sinarundinaria par[v]iflora sp. nov. when sent to Germany as Tung chuan No. 2. Reportedly recognized by Julian Campbell as a form of the bamboo known as Bashania fangiana in Wolong Panda Reserve, and subsequently grown under that name. The name Arundinaria fangiana was published after the name A. faberi, which is considered the same species, so the epithet fangiana would be a synonym of faberi in every genus. Tung Chuan No. 2 would actually appear morphologically closer to the description of Sarocalamus spanostachyus than to that of S. faberi, and the type collection of Sarocalamus spanostachyus was made on Beimu Shan, Huili Xian, which is only 70 miles nth of Dongchuan, while Emei Shan, where S. faberi was collected, is 250 miles nth. However, it seems much smaller than Sarocalamus spanostachyus, and is about the size of another species collected nearby, S. qiaojiaensis, which however has more oral setae than Tung chuan No. 2.
Collected by Prof Xue Ji-Ru and sent to Max Riedelsheimer in Germany from Dongchuan (Red soil) District of Yunnan Province, China, in 1979 as Tung Chuan No. 2.
Photo of ?this bamboo? on Jiaozhi Mt, near collection area in Dongchuan District
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