Phyllostachys nigra (Lodd.) Munro
by W.R. Sykes
Open thicket-forming with rhizomes running extensively. Culm 4-7 m (often much taller in cultivation), green, remaining so or becoming black or heavily blotched black in 2nd year, erect, with white waxy ring beneath nodes when young; nodes all ± evenly spaced. Culm-sheaths uniformly purple or purple-flushed, sometimes dark blotched above; auricles on main shoots prominent, dark; oral bristles long, caducous; sheath-blade linear, undulate. Branches green or black, spreading widely (giving an open network). Leaf-sheath with very short auricles. Oral bristles present. Leaf-blade usually 5-9-(13)× 0.5-2-(3) cm, lanceolate, abaxially glaucescent, adaxially moderately shining, acuminate.
Naturalised from China.
Flowering in P. nigra may have occurred in N.Z. in the early 1960s. An incomplete flowering specimen collected in Wanganui at that time may be P. nigra but is too incomplete for precise determination.
