Bambusa mutabilis McClure

Culms 5–7 m, 2.5–3.5 cm in diam., apically suberect; internodes 40–50 cm, initially thinly white powdery, lower ones with many purple streaks, and with a ring of white powder below sheath scar, glabrous or sometimes very sparsely stiffly strigose; wall rather thin; nodes slightly prominent, basal ca. 3 nodes with a ring of gray-white silky hairs above sheath scar, only basal node with a ring of gray-white silky hairs below sheath scar; branching usually from 5th to 7th node upward. Branches many, clustered, central branch slightly longer and thicker. Culm sheaths deciduous, glossy, with many purple streaks, leathery, rigid, initially thinly white powdery, glabrous, apex slightly asymmetrically arched; auricles unequal, oblong, minutely wrinkled, partly covered by blade base, ends suborbicular, larger ones 1–1.4 × 0.3–0.4 cm, smaller auricle usually 1/2 size of larger one; oral setae dense, deciduous, curved; ligule ca. 2 mm, dentate, shortly fringed or glabrous; blade deciduous, erect, slightly asymmetrically ovate to narrowly ovate, base narrowed and slightly cordate, ca. 2/3 × as wide as sheath apex, abaxially with many purple streaks, apex acuminate, apiculate. Leaf blade linear-lanceolate to lanceolate, 8.5–15.5(–20) × 1.1–1.6(–2) cm, abaxially densely villous, adaxially glabrous. Inflorescence unknown.

* Open fields on hills, riversides, forest margins. Hainan.