Chusquea delicatula Hitchc.
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Authority
Hitchcock, Albert S. 1927. The grasses of Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. Contr. U. S. Natl. Herb. 24: i-xx, 291-556.
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Family
Poaceae
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Scientific Name
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Type
Type in the U. S. National Herbarium, no. 1,164,911, collected on moist shady banks at Bella Vista, Nor-Yungas, Bolivia, December 26, 1923, by A. S. Hitchcock (no. 22748).
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Description
Description - A graceful shrub with long, slender, branching, drooping or trailing fertile culms as much as 3 meters long, 3.5 mm. thick at base, less than 0.5 mm. thick at the flower-bearing tip, usually depending from banks; culms reddish, glabrous, the flowering branches numerous in clusters along the mid culm, as much as 8 cm. long, bearing 4 or 5 leaves, gradually shorter and toward the very slender tip of the culm only 2 cm. long with 1 or 2 reduced leaves; sheaths somewhat keeled toward the summit, hispidulous or glabrate, striate, the summit at each side of the petiole fimbriate with hairs 2 mm. long; ligule thin, 1 mm. long, somewhat pubescent; blades rather thin, narrowly lanceolate, 2 to 3.5 cm. long, 3 to 4 mm. wide, gradually narrowed to a very short petiole, the acuminate tip subulate-pointed, scaberulous on the margin, glabrous beneath, hispidulous on the upper surface along the mid-nerve, rather strongly striate-nerved on upper surface, two pairs of lateral nerves somewhat prominent beneath ; panicles few-flowered, about 2 to 3 cm. long, the axis and branches scabrous-pubescent ; spikelets glabrous, slender-fusiform, 5 to 6 mm. long; glumes wanting or represented by slight callosities at the summit of the pedicel; sterile lemmas about equal, about half as long as tbe spikelet, the strong mid nerve extending into a short subulate point ; fertile lemma rather obscurely nerved, acutish but not subulate-pointed; palea obtuse, shorter than the lemma.
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Discussion
This differs from other species of the Central Andes in the slender, comparatively delicate culms. The collector was unable definitely to connect the fertile phase with the sterile plants growing in the vicinity. In the fertile plants all the culms were floriferous from near the base to the very apex. The following sterile specimens collected in the vicinity of the fertile plants appear to belong to the same species, since they have the same leaf characters, though the blades are larger (as much as 7 cm. long and 8 mm. wide): Bella Vista, Hitchcock 22748, 22749. Another collection of sterile plants made by Buchtien in the same general region appears to be the same species, though the blades are proportionately wider (as much as 7 cm. long and 1 cm. wide): Charopampa, near Mapiri, Buchtien 1154.