Flora of New Zealand Series

Medium-sized forming dense thickets, rhizomes running extensively. Culm usually 4-6 m, dark green at first, later often completely yellow, erect; nodes not prominent; internodes terete except for upper ones flattened on one side. Culm-sheath greenish, brownish green or brownish pink; sheath-blade green, 3-6 cm, linear-subulate. Branches ± erect, several at each node, forming dense clusters. Leaf-sheath apex oblique. Ligule short. Oral bristles conspicuous. Leaf-blade partly or wholly drooping, 6-15-(18) × 0.6-1.5-(2.2) cm, ± lanceolate, uniformly dark green, acuminate.

N.: Wanganui, banks of Wanganui River, east side in and near Kowhai Park.

Naturalised from Japan.

Pleioblastus hindsii was originally planted in the Wanganui R. area and now forms a dense narrow band for over a kilometre on top of the bank. Not known to be wild elsewhere in N.Z. although sometimes cultivated.

Flowers not reported from N.Z.

The record of P. hindsii from the Selwyn River bed in Canterbury, Healy, A. J. in Knox, G. A. (Ed.) Nat. Hist. Canty 310 (1969) is in error and is most probably based on P. chino.

Also known in N.Z. as Arundinaria hindsii Munro.