Scientific Name: Bambusa vulgaris Schrad.

Synonyms: Bambusa auriculata Kurz, Bambusa blancoi Steud.

Unique ID: 27

Systematic Position

Class: Monocotyledonae

Series: Glumaceae

Family: Poaceae

Common Names

English – Yellow bamboo, Feathery bamboo

Malayalam – മഞ്ഞമുള

Tamil – Moongil

Hindi – Bans

Description: Open clumping, sympodial bamboo. Culm erect, sinuous or slightly zig-zag, 10-20 m tall, 4-10 cm in diameter, wall 7-15 mm thick, glossy green, yellow, or yellow with green stripes; internodes 20-45 cm long, with appressed dark hairs and white waxy when young, becoming glabrous, smooth and shiny with age; nodes oblique, slightly swollen, basal ones covered with aerial roots. Encased in tightly packed leaves, shoots are conical in shape, bulging slightly above the base before tapering towards the tip. Leaf blade 6-30 cm long, 1-4 cm wide, glabrous; ligule a subentire rim 0.5-1.5 mm; auricles small rounded lobes, with a few bristles 1-3 mm.
Inflorescence usually borne on a leafless branch of a leafless culm or on a culm with small leaves, bearing small groups of pseudospikelets at the nodes. Flowering in B. vulgaris is not common. When a culm flowers, it produces a large number of flowers but no fruit, and eventually the culm dies, but the clumps usually survive and return to fully vegetative growth within a few years.  

Habitat: B. vulgaris grows best at lower altitudes (below 1200 m altitude) in areas with annual rainfall ranging from 1500 to 3800 mm. It grows under a wide range of environmental conditions, growing in almost permanently humid conditions along rivers and lakes, but also in areas with a severe dry season, where the plants may become completely defoliated. 

Distribution:  B. vulgaris originated in the Old World, probably in tropical Asia. It is the most widely cultivated bamboo throughout the tropics and subtropics, but is also found spontaneously or naturalized on river banks. In South-East Asia it is the most commonly encountered cultivated bamboo, found everywhere in villages, on river banks and as an ornamental in towns.

Uses: Environmental: Boundary, barrier or support, Erosion control or dune stabilization; Ornamental; Vegetable; Cane, fibre, wood, timber, construction; traditional, folklore uses in medicines