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Bambusa vulgaris
Also called Golden Bamboo, Bamboo
In Singapore: Ivory Bamboo, Buluh Gading, Stripe Bamboo, Buddha's Belly Bamboo, Giant Buddha Belly (Cultivated in Singapore)
Bambusa vulgaris is a fast-growing, open-clump bamboo with yellow-green striped canes, widely grown as an ornamental in the tropics and subtropics. It thrives with full sun or part shade, steady moisture and protection from grazing animals.
Bambusa vulgaris, common bamboo, is an open-clump type bamboo species. It is native to Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, and to the province of Yunnan in southern China, but it has been widely cultivated in many other places and has become naturalized in several regions. Among bamboo species, it is one of the largest and most easily recognized.
Though not suited for small yards, as it grows in large clumps, young plants of golden bamboo can be grown in large containers. Golden bamboo grows well in full sunlight or partial shade. Protection is important, as animals often graze on young shoots. In Tanzania, management of B. vulgaris cultivation entails clearing of the ground around clumps.
Among all bamboos, only shoots of B. vulgaris contains taxiphyllin (a cyanogenic glycoside) that functions as an enzyme inhibitor in the human body when released, but degrades readily in boiling water. It is highly toxic, and the lethal dose for humans is about 50–60 mg. A dose of 25 mg cyanogenic glycoside fed to rats (100–120 g body weight) caused clinical signs of toxicity, including apnoea, ataxia, and paresis. Horses in Pará, Brazil, were diagnosed with clinical signs of somnolence and severe ataxia after ingesting B. vulgaris. Farmers in Africa sometimes prefer to buy it rather than plant it, as they believe it harms the soil.
Common bamboo is the most widely grown bamboo throughout the tropics and subtropics. Although mostly known only from cultivation, spontaneous (nondomesticated), escaped, and naturalized populations exist throughout the tropics and subtropics in and outside Asia. B. vulgaris is widely cultivated in East, Southeast, and South Asia, as well as tropical Africa including Madagascar. It is highly concentrated in the Indomalayan rainforests. The species is one of the most successful bamboos in Pakistan, Tanzania, and Brazil.
Common bamboo has a wide variety of uses, including the stems used as fuel and the leaves used as fodder, though a large amount of ingestion of leaves is known to cause neurological disorder among horses. The worldwide production and trade of B. vulgaris is considerable, though no statistics are available. It also has some disadvantages. Working and machining properties of the stems are poor, as they are not straight, not easy to split, and not flexible, but they are thick-walled and initially strong. Because of high carbohydrate content, stems are susceptible to attacks from fungi and insects such as powderpost beetles. Protection from biological threats is essential for long-term use.
Top End Bamboo · Cape Bamboo · Thorny Bamboo · Timor Black Bamboo · Bamboo · Hedge bamboo · Oldham's Bamboo · Textile bamboo · Bamboo · Bamboo
[Contains information from Leaf Area Index (LAI) and Heritage Trees from data.gov.sg (National Parks Board), made available under the terms of the Singapore Open Data Licence version 1.0]
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Bambusa vulgaris by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
