Silkreed

The lower glume lies tight against the lowest sterile lemma and is easily overlooked.

This is an ornamental and soil-retaining grass.

Tall reed. Sheath-mounth densely covered with long hairs; ligule 2 mm long, truncate, shortly ciliate on dorsal side; blade 2 cm wide, apex attenuate. Panicle large, open. Spikelets 2-5-flowered, 5-6 mm long; glumes membranous,lanceolate; the lower 1.5 mm long, apex acute or rounded; the upper 2 mm long, apex acute, 1-nerved; lowest lemma 4 mm long, 3-nerved; second lemma membranousss, 5 mm logn, margins long ciliate, 3-nerved, apex sinus, middle nerve extending into a recurved awn; palea membranous, 3 mm long, 2-keeled, apex slightly cleft, minutely ciliate along keels.

Perennial, robust, caespitose from a short woody scaly rhizome. Culms erect, 1–3 m tall, 3–10 mm in diam., usually fasciculately branched, many-noded, internodes somewhat glaucous, nodes purple. Leaf sheaths glabrous but pilose at mouth; leaf blades flat or involute, 20–70 × 0.4–1 cm, glabrous or adaxial surface pilose, apex long acuminate; ligule 1–2 mm. Panicle ample, loose to dense, glistening, 30–70 cm, branches slender, nodding; pedicels 1–4 mm. Spikelets 6–9 mm, florets 4–10, lowest sterile, resembling glumes but somewhat longer; glumes golden-brown or purplish, glabrous, subequal, 2–3 mm, acute; lemmas purplish, ca. 4 mm, lateral veins ciliate with white, soft, ca. 2 mm hairs, awn recurved, 1–2 mm. Fl. and fr. Aug–Dec.

Nepal, E. India, Burma, China, Taiwall, Malaysia.

Eastern India, Burma, Malaya and China.

400-900 m

Streamsides, hill slopes, rocky places, old walls. Anhui, Fujian, Gansu, Guangdong, Guangxi, Guizhou, Hainan, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangsu, Jiangxi, Sichuan, Taiwan, Xizang, Yunnan, Zhejiang [Bhutan, Cambodia, NE India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand, Vietnam].

Arundo reynaudiana Kunth, Révis. Gramin. 1: 275. 1830; A. henslowiana Nees; A. zollingeri Buse; Neyraudia arundinacea var. zollingeri (Buse) Henrard; N. madagascariensis (Kunth) J. D. Hooker var. zollingeri (Buse) J. D. Hooker; N. mezii (Janowsky) Veldkamp; Thysanolaena mezii Janowski.