To the taxonomist, bamboos pose
special difficulties in identification. Rarity
of flowering frequency is one of them.
Suppressed vegetative activity during flowering
in some species usually results in the
death of the plant. Holttum ( 1958) and
McClure ( 1966), therefore, emphasised the
use of all vegetative parts for identifying
and classifying bamboos. Melocalamus Benth. is represented by
M. compactiflorus ( Kurz) Benth. and occur
in Burma, Bangladesh, India and IndoChina.
The genus is characterized by its
two flowered spikelets and relatively large
fruit. Even though the genus was established
much earlier (Bentham 1881, Bentham
1883 ), little is known about its vegetative
and floral morphology and fruit structure.
Diagnostic value of different vegetative and
floral characters and the details of the
fruit have been studied in this work which
has not been done before.