The data include four comma-delimited (CSV) files and one word document. data1.csv file saves the raw data (including blade fresh mass, dry mass, area, length, width, perimeter and other measures) of 10045 leaves from 101 species, varieties, forms, and cultivars of bamboo; data2.csv file saves the results of the leaf dry mass per unit area (g/m²) comparison among 101 data sets; data3.csv file saves the results of the quotient of blade width to length comparison among 101 data sets; data4.csv file saves the fitted results for the scaling relationships of blade dry mass vs. surface area for 101 data sets; the word document (i.e., the metadata.docx file) is the metadata, which is used to show the meanings of the column variables in each table.

Leaves from a total of 101 species, varieties, forms, and cultivars of bamboo were collected. data1.csv file provides the scientific names [according to the Flora of China (Wu, Raven and Hong 2006) and Bamboos of the World (Ohrnberger 1999)]. Leaves were randomly collected from different locations within middle canopies without distinguishing between sun or shade leaves during May-July of 2018. Samples were gathered from at least three different healthy adult individuals that were similar in size and age. Only mature leaves were collected and processed within 10 min in the field. Leaves were placed into large sealed polyethylene bags containing wet paper to maintain moisture. The bags were stored in an ice box to prevent decomposition even though the collection sites of most materials in Nanjing were near the laboratory, and the entire processing was completed within 2 h. Approximately 100 leaves were collected from different conspecifics for each taxon and measured to ascertain leaf area, width, length, fresh mass and dry mass. W/L and LMA were subsequently calculated.

Leaf lamina area and shape were recorded using a HP Scanjet 4850 scanner (Hewlett-Packard Company, Palo Alto, California). The images were saved as bitmap images at a 200 dpi resolution. Adobe Photoshop (version: CC 2017) was used to obtain a new layer of the leaf edge in a black-white image (Shi et al. 2018). The M-function [using Matlab version ≥ 2009a developed by Shi et al. (2018) and Su et al. (2019)] was used to extract the planar coordinates of the leaf edge from each black-white image; the R script developed by Su et al. (2019) was then used to calculate leaf area, length, width, perimeter and other measures. Leaves were then dried in a ventilated oven at 80 °C for at least 72 h until obtaining a constant dry mass, which was measured using an electronic balance (ME204/02, Mettler Toledo Instrument (Shanghai) Co., Ltd, Shanghai, China).

References:

Ohrnberger D (1999) The bamboos of the world: Annotated nomenclature and literature of the species and the higher and lower taxa. Amsterdam: Elsevier.

Shi P, Ratkowsky DA, Li Y, Zhang L, Lin S, Gielis J (2018) General leaf-area geometric formula exists for plants-Evidence from the simplified Gielis equation. Forests 9: 714

Su J, Niklas KJ, Huang W, Yu X, Yang Y, Shi P (2019) Lamina shape does not correlate with lamina surface area: An analysis based on the simplified Gielis equation. Glob Ecol Conserv 19: e00666

Wu Z, Raven PH, Hong D (2006) Flora of China (Vol. 22): Poaceae. Beijing, China: Science Press, and St. Louis, MO: Missouri Botanical Garden Press.