Seed - Specimen details
| Catalogue Number: 34278 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| No Image | Plant Name | 200.00 POACEAE Melocalamus compactiflorus | Entry Book Number | 84.1902 | |
| Artefact Name | Seed | Vernacular Name | |||
| Iso Country | Burma | TDWG Region | Burma | ||
| Parts Held | Seed | Geography Description | Burma, Asia-Tropical, Indo-China, Hills at Sinlimkaba, Bhamo | ||
| Uses | SeedUse: MATERIALS - Fibres User: Man | TDWG use | MATERIALS - Fibres | ||
| Storage | Bottles, boxes etc | Related Items | |||
| Donor | Blackwell GFR | Donor No | |||
| Donor Date | Donor Notes | ||||
| Collector | Collector No | ||||
| Collection Notes | Collection Date | ||||
| Exhibition | Expedition | ||||
| Number Components | Publication | ||||
| Notes: | Opuscular source: Extract from letter GFR Blackwell, Deputy Conservator of Forests Bhamo Division, Bharmo to Director dated Bhamo 28th July 1902 A bamboo called by the Kachins 'Tachinwa' is found on the hills at Sinlimkaba a height of 6000 ft. It is appa, rently frequent only on the high hills on the borders of China and is indubitably found on the other side from the fact that shoes and sandals are made out of it and to all appearances as though made out of grass. The bamboo is stripped in a green state a, nd the the thread or yarns are very pliable and soft. These are twisted into strands and the shoes or sandals made by interlacing the strands. Almost every Kachin Shan and Chinese traders who go to and from Bhamo wear these shoes. The bamboo had flowered, and consequently green specimens of the stems were not obtainable. Spikes were thrown out from the nodes or perhaps to be more strict in terminology branchlets (as the bamboo appeared to be arborescent) and these were covered with the flowers as seen in, any ordinary bamboo flowering only that the flowering appeared to be more in clusters or rosettes. At these flowerings, or as it were attached to them, single fruits globular in shape hung. There was on the same branchlet a small fruit evidently just form, ed (the ovary having ripened into a small ovoid or rounded fruit) with the large mature caryopsis the seed of which had germinated whilst attached to the branch putting out a tuft of roots and a shoot prior to falling to the ground, whilst others again ha, d fallen and taken root. Kurz in his forest flora describes the seed of the species pseudostachyum thus 'caryopsis very large, more or less globular, the pericarp thin and coriaceous'. The fruit is much like a wood apple in shape and the testa is somewhat, leathery. Seed large mealy fleshy, this it is and resembles much the edible chestnut. It is not as sweet to the taste. Kurz further states the culms of P. compactiflorum are very strong but does not mention whether they are hollow or wooded throughout. T, he culms of this are wooded throughout and the internodes vary from twelve to eighteen inches and may even reach two feet in length. Probably would do so in fine specimens grown under favourable conditions. On the habitat of P. compactiflorum, Kurz says ', frequent in the drier hill forests of Martaban east of Tarmgu at 4000 to 6000 elevation rarely descending to 3000 feet. But the bamboo in question is not met with 500 feet below Sinlimkaba which is a little over 6000 feet. Sinlimkaba is an isolated hill,, i.e. not on the main chain of hills but on an offshoot. In an air line about 3 miles to 4 miles towards China the next high peak is Aarraboone 9000 feet but this bamboo is not found in the dip between. Though as one ascends I understand it is again met wi, th. Is this the P. compactiflorum? the flowering appears to indicate it or is a new pseudostachyum. | ||||