1800.] J. S. Gamble — Description of a new Genus of Bamhoos. 207 



IX. — Description of a new Genus of Bartiboos. — By J. S. Gamble, M. A, 



[Received January 29tli ; — read February 5th, 1890.] 



(With Plate VII.) 



MiCROCALAMus, nov. genus. 



SpilceJets many-flowered, spicately arranged in a leafy panicle, 

 racliilla jointed under the flowers. Flowers many hermaphrodite, the 

 uppermost male or empty; empty glumes 2, paleaceous, smooth. 

 Flowering glume falcate, many-nerved. Paleae 2-keeled, falcate, keels 

 ciliate. Lodicules 3. Stamens 6, filaments free. Fruit with a fleshy 

 pericarp, adhering to the seed : style shortly 3-fld, stigmas plumose. A 

 climbing wiry grass with leaf branches in whorls. Leaves short, articu- 

 late with their sheaths, without transverse veinlets. Flower-spikes on 

 leafy branches ; spikelets distant as are the flowers. 



M. Prainii, nov. spec. A small wiry climbing bamboo. Stems 

 thin, smooth, green, one quarter inch in diameter, nearly solid 

 and reaching 30 feet in length, swollen at the nodes into a well-marked 

 ring ; internodes 8 to 9 inches long. Stem sheaths thin, somewhat sca- 

 brous, 4 to 4-| inches long, gradually tapering to a point and crowned 

 with a short ('1 to 2 inch) needle-like apical leaf. Leaf-tranches 

 short, numerous, in close whorls on the stem and branchlets. Leaves 

 small, 2 to 3 inches long by "3 to "4 inches broad, much acuminate with 

 a hair-like tip, the point as well as one edge of the leaf scabrous ; main 

 veins 2 to 3 pairs, transverse veinlets none ; petiole short, distinct ; leaf- 

 sheaths smooth, striate, ending in a curved apex under the petiole ; 

 ligule blunt. Spikelets in terminal and axillary leafy panicles ; pedun- 

 cles very thin, wiry. Spihelets in the axils of a sheath-like bract, 1 to 

 1 J inches long. Flowers 5 to 8, spicate, in alternate excavations of a thin 

 glabrous sinuous rachis ; terminal ones empty or male. Empty glumes 

 two, glabrous, acute, the upper often long acuminate, 5- nerved ; the 

 lower 3-nerved. Floivering glume triangular-falcate, acute, glabrous, 9-11 

 nerved, nerves conspicuous. Paleae 2-keeled, ciliate on the keels, 7 to 9 

 nerved, falcate. Anthers 6, straight, with a blunt tip, filaments distinct. 

 Ovary with fleshy walls ; style bulbous, papillose at the base ; stigmas 

 3, plumose. Lodicules 3 ; two obovate, slightly fimbriate at tip, the 

 third acute and 3-toothed ; all 3- veined. 



Found by Dr. Prain in April 1886 on the edge of a precipice on 

 Pulinabadza, 7,870 feet, Naga Hills, Assam, and by Mr. RoUo on the 



