Year: 2026 | Month: July | Volume: 13 | Issue: 7 | Pages: 538-548
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijrr.20260758
Morphological and Molecular Identification of a Schizostachyum Bamboo (Poaceae: Bambusoideae) from Manado City, North Sulawesi, Indonesia
Caroline Ruth Naulita Eklesia Panggabean1, Beivy Jonathan Kolondam1, Eva Lienneke Baideng1
1Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, Sam Ratulangi University, Manado, Indonesia.
Corresponding Author: Beivy Jonathan Kolondam
ABSTRACT
Bamboo (Poaceae: Bambusoideae) is a group of woody grasses with high ecological and economic value that is widely distributed across the Indonesian archipelago, including North Sulawesi. Identifying bamboo to species level using morphology alone is difficult because the reproductive organs that serve as the primary taxonomic determinants appear only during flowering cycles that may span several decades. This study aimed to identify a bamboo specimen collected in Manado City by integrating morphological characterisation with DNA barcoding based on the chloroplast matK gene. A specimen coded CP3 was collected purposively in Taas Sub-district, Tikala District, Manado City, and its vegetative characters were documented following the bamboo identification key for Sulawesi. Genomic DNA was extracted using a Genomic DNA Mini Kit (Plant), the matK region was amplified by PCR using the matK-3Fr and matK-1Rf primer pair, and the amplicon was verified on a 1.2% agarose gel before bidirectional Sanger sequencing. Chromatograms were edited in Geneious Prime, assembled into a consensus sequence, and queried against the GenBank database using BLASTn. Morphologically, the specimen was identified as Schizostachyum brachycladum based on subequal branching, nodes lacking aerial roots and a nodal knee, and persistent golden-brown culm sheaths bearing an erect triangular blade. PCR produced a single band of approximately 800 to 900 bp and the consensus sequence was 837 bp long. BLAST analysis returned 100% query cover for all hits, with percent identity ranging from 99.52% to 100%. The two highest matches, Cephalostachyum pergracile and Schizostachyum zollingeri, both belong to Schizostachyum under currently accepted nomenclature, so the matK barcode resolved the specimen to genus level but not to species level. The gradation of identity values followed the phylogenetic structure of the subtribe Melocanninae. These findings indicate that matK is informative for genus-level assignment in Schizostachyum while species-level discrimination requires a multi-locus approach, and they provide the first matK reference sequence for bamboo from Manado City.
Keywords: bamboo, DNA barcoding, matK, Schizostachyum, Manado City.
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