Belongs to the ditypic genus: P. madagascariensis and P. tsarasaotrensis; Subfamily: Bambusoideae; Tribe: Bambuseae.

Bamboos 5-6 m high. Leaves deciduous; flowering culms rounded and swollen at the nodes. Inflorescences formed of subverticulate branchlets, in dense fascicles. Upper leaves concealing 1-3 small subverticulate spikelets; spikelets with one hermaphrodite flower; glume 1, oval-lanceolate. Flower hermaphrodite. Fruit obovoid; separable pericarp sparsely fleshy. P.tsarasaotrensis differs from P. madagascariensis by its longer spikelets andsingle glume. This genus is distinguished from all other Bambuseae genera byinflorescences, flower morphology and fruits with separablepericarp. Phylogenetically, it is related to the genus Valiha (Zhou & al., 2017).