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Plants shrub-like, spreading to form dense to open thickets; rhizomes leptomorph, spreading. Culms solitary or pluricespitose, erect or pendulous; internodes grooved on 1 side above branches, often more or less quadrangular; nodes swollen, often conspicuously so, often with a ring of aerial roots developed into sharp thorns; branches initially (2)-3 per mid-culm node, decurrent, subequal; budscale absent or two separate, short, single-keeled bracts, margins free and not closed at front or back. Culm sheaths usually papery, deciduous; blades very small and narrow. Leaf sheaths usually deciduous; blade usually glossy, thick, venation tessellate. Synflorescence bracteate, with racemose branching, semelauctant; spikelets 1--3, subtended by small bracts, sessile, with many florets. Glumes 2, with or without small, largely vestigial buds. Stamens 3; stigmas 2. Name from the Greek cheimon, ‘winter’, and bambusa, referring to the late summer to early winter appearance of new shoots of some species.
Chimonobambusa is a spreading genus of approximately 35 species, native to China, southeastern Asia, and Japan. The type species, C. marmorea, is thornless with round culms, but the majority of species have thorny nodes on more or less quadrangular culms. Culm sheath blades are extremely small. One species, C. tumidissinoda, has very pronounced disc-like culm nodes. Many species have red colouration on sheaths, branches or culms.
Wen T.H. (1994). The taxonomy and cultivation of Chimonobambusa Makino. J. Amer. Bamboo Soc.11: 1--80;
Stapleton, C.M.A., & Xia, N.H. (2004). Qiongzhuea and Dendrocalamopsis (Poaceae-Bambusoideae): publication by descriptio generico-specifico and typification. Taxon 53: 526--528.
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