Shrubby or arborescent bamboos. Rhizomes short necked, pachymorph. Culms unicaespitose, erect; internodes terete, glabrous, cavity not filled with pith; nodes with slightly prominent supra-nodal ridge and a ring of root thorns especially dense at lower nodes. Branch complement 3 at mid-culm nodes, 3–5 at upper culm nodes, promontory absent. Culm sheaths deciduous, usually longer than internodes, sparsely setose; auricles absent or inconspicuous; blade erect or recurved, lanceolate or triangular. Leaves usually small; blade with inconspicuous transverse veins. Inflorescence ebracteate, semelauctant, an open racemose panicle initially terminal to leafy flowering branches. Spikelets robust, 4–12 flowered, followed by a sterile floret, pedicels long. Glumes 2; lemma many veined, mucronate. Palea slightly longer than lemma, 2-keeled, obtuse. Lodicules 3, transparent. Stamens 3; filaments free; anthers yellow. Ovary glabrous, appendage absent; style 1; stigmas 2, plumose. Caryopsis slender, beaked. New shoots Jun–Jul, fl. Mar–May.
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