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Olyra latifolia
Olyra latifolia, commonly known as carrycillo, is a species of bamboo in the grass family Poaceae. It occurs in Mexico, Central and South America, and in sub-Saharan Africa. It is a common species, up to 5 m (16 ft) tall, growing prolifically in rainforests, particularly near the margins.
This bamboo can be propagated from culms (stems) growing up from the rhizome or from seed.
This bamboo is found in both the New World and the Old World. In the Americas its range includes the West Indies, Mexico and Central and South America as far south as Paraguay, Bolivia and northern Argentina, while in Africa it occurs in sub-Saharan Africa southwards to Angola, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, as well as in Madagascar and the Comoro Islands and has been naturalised in South Africa. It is a common, rather weedy rainforest species growing in both primary and secondary forests, and gallery forests, mostly near the edges of the trees, and generally at altitudes of less than 1,000 m (3,300 ft).
The stems of this bamboo have been used for drinking straws and to make bobbins for spinning.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Olyra latifolia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.
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.
