Abstract: Micromorphological characters of leaf epidermis of 27 published species of Chimonobambusa Makino were examined by both light and scanning electron microscopes (Table 1). On the adaxial surface, bulliform cells are of irregular or tetragonal shape and in 2-- 3 rows between veins; stomata rare. On the abaxial surface, intercostal long cells are of thin and sinuous wall; short cells solitary, paired, or 3 to several in a row on veins; silica bodies narrow tall or saddle like; bicellular hairs common, with the basal cell slightly longer than or as long as the distal cell; hooks elliptic and apiculate, common in some species and rare in the others; papillae numerous, those overarching stomata showing different patterns (Plates 1, 2). The examined species exhibit three types of leaf epidermis (Table 2 ): 1, papillae widely spread, 4 rod- like papillae overarching the individual stomata, hooks common, including all the six examined species of Sect. Qiongzhuea and 9 species of Sect. Oreocalamus; 2, papillae around stomata only (with the exception of C. microfloscula), the 4 papillae branched or curved, plus several small ones, forming an arciform cover over the individual stomata, hooks sparse, including 7 species of Sect. Oreocalamus and 1 species of Sect. Chimonobambusa; 3, papillae overarching stomata intermediate between the other two types, with the other characters similar to type 1, including 2 species of Sect. Chimonobambusa and 2 species of Sect. Oreocalamus. The three types more or less correspond to the current classification of the genus based on gross morphology, but since Sect. Oreocalamus showed all the three types and type 3 was somewhat intermediate between the other two, present data support a broad sense of the genus Chimonobambusa, and the three sections proposed by Ohrnberger (1990) are to some extent acceptable. The results support the removing of C. luzhiensis from Sect. Qiongzhuea, but reassignment of C. metuoensis to Sect. Qiongzhuea cannot be confirmed. In addition, the leaf epidermis is of diagnostic value at species level. The data support the inclusion of C. linearifolia in C. angustifolia, but do not support that of C. rivularis in C. lactistriata, nor of C. yunnanensis and C. tuberculata in C. armata (Ohrnberger, 1990). In fact, C. yunnanensis, C. tuberculata and C. lactistriata, in addition to C. hirtinoda, are similar to C. qudrangularis in both leaf and gross morphological characters; so is C. pachystachys to C. utilis, C. neopurpurea to C. marmorea, and maybe C. rigidula to C. szechuanensis. They are possibly sister-species.or even conspecific, respectively. The various specific papillate patterns are characteristic of bamboo taxa, andinvestigation of wider samples will be of great interest in bamboo systematics.

Key words: Chimonobambusa, Bambusoideae, Leaf, Micromorphology