Acidosasa Chu and Chao
From Latin acidum (sour) and Sasa (another bamboo genus), referring to the edible shoots.
Habit, vegetative morphology. Shrubby perennial (with sour, edible young shoots). The flowering culms leafy. Culms 300–800 cm high; woody and persistent; branched above. Primary branches/mid-culm node 3. Culm sheaths deciduous in their entirety. Rhizomes leptomorph. Plants unarmed. Leaves not basally aggregated. Leaf blades broad (large); pseudopetiolate; disarticulating from the sheaths; rolled in bud.
Reproductive organization. Plants bisexual, with bisexual spikelets; with hermaphrodite florets.
Inflorescence. Inflorescence determinate; without pseudospikelets; a single raceme, or paniculate; not comprising ‘partial inflorescences’ and foliar organs. Spikelet-bearing axes ‘racemes’, or paniculate (scanty); persistent. Spikelets pedicellate.
Female-fertile spikelets. Spikelets unconventional (having 4 glumes); compressed laterally; disarticulating above the glumes; disarticulating between the florets. Rachilla prolonged beyond the uppermost female-fertile floret.
Glumes present; several (four). Spikelets without proximal incomplete florets.
Female-fertile florets 3–6 (? - ‘several’). Palea present; relatively long; entire (acuminate). Stamens 6. Ovary without a conspicuous apical appendage. Stigmas 3.
Taxonomy. Bambusoideae; Bambusodae; Bambuseae.
Distribution, ecology, phytogeography. 6 species; mostly southern China, one species in Indo-China.
Paleotropical. Indomalesian. Indo-Chinese.
Economic importance. The young shoots are preserved by local people as a vegetable.
References, etc. Morphological/taxonomic: Chu and Chao 1979, Chao and Renvoize 1989.
Special comments. Fruit data wanting. Anatomical data wanting.
Cite this publication as: Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M. J. (1992 onwards). ‘Grass Genera of the World: Descriptions, Illustrations, Identification, and Information Retrieval; including Synonyms, Morphology, Anatomy, Physiology, Phytochemistry, Cytology, Classification, Pathogens, World and Local Distribution, and References.’ http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/. Version: 18th August 1999. Dallwitz (1980), Dallwitz, Paine and Zurcher (1993 onwards, 1998), and Watson and Dallwitz (1994), and Watson, Dallwitz, and Johnston (1986) should also be cited (see References).