58 ANNALS OF THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDEN, CALCUTTA. 
4. Thyrsostachys, genus nov., Gamble. 
Arborescent bamboos of graceful habit and moderate size. Culms Straight, erect, 
branching above, often covered with the long persistent sheaths. Culm-sheaths elongate, 
thin; imperfect blade long, narrow. Leaves usually small to moderate-sized. Inflorescence 
a large compound panicle, the spikelets sessile or stalked in the axils of prominent 
bracts. Spikelets pale-coloured, loose, with 2 to З flowers, uppermost seed-bearing, and 
with a terminal rudimentary flower on a produced rachilla ; empty glumes 1 or 2, much 
striate ; flowering glumes .similar; palea of lower flowers deeply 2-cleft, with narrow 
tail-like divisions, 2-keeled, ciliate on the keels, that of upper fertile flower not keeled or 
cleft, elongate; rachilla hairy. Lodicules very thin, 0 to 2 or 3, long acuminate, Stamens 
6, long exserted, anthers mucronate. Ovary turbinate, depressed, stalked, surmounted 
by a long style, bearing 2 to 3 broad feathery stigmas. Caryopsis cylindrical, smooth, 
glabrous, shining at the top, grooved on one side, long-beaked, embryo prominent, 
pericarp crustaceous, adherent to the seed. 
Flowers large, culm-sheaths straight-truncate at top, leaves 
КЕМЕР ТЫС, 2 ee ee v Gee L: T. оре. 
Flowers small, culm-sheaths triangularly-truncate at top and 
with pointed auricles, leaves small. . . . . . . . 9. T. siamensis. 
1. Тнувзовтаснув OLIVERI, n. sp. Gamble. 
. А large csspitose bamboo with straight culms from a thick rootstock. Culms 
50 to 80 ft. high, 2 to 25 in. im diameter, bright green with whitish silky down 
when young, dull green or yellowish when old; nodes very little thickened ; internodes 
16 to 24 in. long, walls rather thin. Culm-sheaths somewhat thin, imbricating at the 
base, above three-fourths of the length of the internodes, green when young, then 
turning orange and finally brown, persistent, clothed on the back with thick white stiff 
pubescence, somewhat rounded at top, but then cut off to a breadth of 1 to 19 
in. ciliate at the edges, not auricled, though slightly produced ; imperfect blade long, 
recurved, subulate, acuminate, hairy above, 8 to 9 iu. long by ‘7 in. broad; ligule 
"1 in. broad, serrate. Leaves light green, linear-lanceolate, acuminate; 7 to 8 in. long, 
"5 to '7 in. broad, rounded at the base into a short (1 to '2 in.) petiole; somewhat 
rough on both sides, hairy beneath, scabrous on the edges, those of young plants broader, 
more hairy below and bearing long, bulbous-based, strigose hairs above; main veins 
narrow, secondary veins 6 pairs, intermediate 5 to 7, no regular transverse veinlets, but 
frequent irregular pellucid dots instead; /eaf-sheaths striate, hairy, keeled, ending in 
glabrous or hairy ciliate calluses and slightly produced at the mouth, ciliate at the edges ; 
ligule short, truncate, pubescent. Jnflorescence a large compound curved thyrsoid panicle 
bearing bracts at the nodes, with usually one long and two shorter flower-bearing 
spikelets and one or more sterile ones; rachis flexuose, hairy, swollen at the top; bract 
а straw-coloured blunt sheath, *5 to ‘7 in. or more long, sometimes with a deciduous 
green imperfect blade, Spikelets “6 to 1 in., longer ones with long jointed rachis, shorter 
ones with very short joints; rachis hairy, flexuose ; fertile flowers 2 to 3, with an upper- 
most rudimentary flower on a slender terminal гаса; empty glumes 2, ovate-acute, 
