Flora of New Zealand Series

Type species: P. japonica (Steud.) Nakai

Tall or medium-sized with short or running monopodial rhizomes. Culms dense, forming thickets; nodes not prominent; internodes hollow, terete. Branches 1 per node, sometimes 2-3 at upper nodes, absent from lower nodes. Culm-sheath persistent, > internodes but ≤ upper internodes, unspotted; auricles absent; oral bristles usually absent, smooth if present. Leaf-sheath without auricles and oral bristles. Leaf-blade tessellate. Inflorescence a racemose panicle. Spikelets 3-8-flowered. Glumes 2. Lodicules 3. Stamens 3-(4). Stigmas 3. Fig. 1.

6 spp. in eastern Asia (3 in Japan, 3 in Taiwan). Naturalised sp. 1.

Pseudosasa is closely related to Sasa but the culms are taller than any Sasa, at least in N.Z. (wild or cultivated). The upper culm nodes of Pseudosasa often bear 2 or 3 branches but there is only one in Sasa. In N.Z. P. japonica produced flowers for many years until the early 1990s whereas no spp. of Sasa seem to have flowered here since the early 1970s.