|
Culms 1--2 m tall, 0.4--1 cm thick, pendulous; internodes 8--20 cm, not ridged, proximally glabrous, distally with light brown wooly scurf denser and darker in persistent ring below node; nodes not raised; branches 1(--2). Culm sheath longer than the internode, to 30 cm, apically narrow, to 3 mm wide, with sparse appressed antrorse setae and light wooly wax at first, external margin with dense light brown wooly hairs, internal margin glabrous and membranous; auricles absent; oral setae sparse, to 5 mm long, erect; ligule to 1 mm, truncate; blade to 5 cm, narrow, subulate, to 3 mm wide, erect, glabrous, deciduous. Leaf sheaths: sheath terete, glabrous, not pruinose, margins glabrous; ligule truncate to rounded, entire, glabrous, external ligule not ciliate; blade large, broad, 30--60 cm long, to 5--9 cm wide, lightly pilose along one side of abaxial midrib. 2n = unknown. Name from Latintessellatus, ‘tessellate’ for the reticulate pattern of venation on the leaf blades.
Indocalamus tessellatus forms rather untidy mounds, with the culms being weighed down by the very large foliage leaf blades, which were once used for wrapping parcels of tea-leaves sent from China to Europe, and even for making sails for Chinese junks.
Originally from eastern provinces of China.
|
)
)
