34. Dendrocalamus longispathus (Kurz) Kurz
Local names
English- long sheath bamboo
Tripura- Rupai
General description
Dendrocalamus longispathus is an evergreen, clump-forming bamboo producing culms usually 10 - 20 metres tall. The distinguishing vegetative features are long papery culm-sheath with depressed sinuous top covering almost the whole internode and the young shoot with reflexed blades. The culms are 6 - 12cm in diameter, with internodes 25 - 60cm long and a wall 12mm thick. Culm-sheaths 35-50 cm long and 10-20 cm broad, inner surface glabrous and outer surface clothed densely with patches of stiff dark-brown hair. Leaves 10-30 cm long and 2.5-4.5 cm broad, oblong-lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, acuminate, short-stalked margins rough; leaf-sheath ligulate, covered with brown pubescence, margin ciliate. Inflorescence a large panicle of interruptedly spicate clusters of spikelets. Spikelets in heads, sometimes few-flowered blunt, nearly glabrous, 5-7.5 mm long. Stamens short; anther yellow, short, ending in a black mucronate point; filaments short. Ovary broadly ovoid, somewhat acute, hairy, ending in a rather short style and short purple stigma. Caryopsis ovoid, somewhat oblique, yellow, surmounted by a beak formed by the base of the style. Flowering was observed in the clumps planted at Nilambur and Wynad (Kerala) in 1990.
Habit and Habitat
Tree form.
Distribution
Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, India- Mizoram and Tripura.
Uses
This species is generally used for the manufacture of paper. In Tripura it is used for making basket and containers. This is found as an ideal material for the manufacture of good quality tooth picks. This being an elegant species is grown in gardens.