Bambusa Vulgaris - Taxonomy

Taxonomy

The bambusoid taxa have long been considered the most "primitive" grasses, mostly because of the presence of bracteate, indeterminate inflorescences, pseudospikelets (units of the inflorescence in woody bamboos, consisting of one to many flowers and associated glumes, that rebranch to produce successive orders of spikelets), and flowers with three lodicules (minute scales of the florets of grasses, found between the lemma and the sexual organs of the flower), six stamens, and three stigmas. Bamboos are some of the fastest growing plants in the world.

Bambusa vulgaris is a species of the large genus Bambusa of the clumping bamboo tribe Bambuseae, which are found largely in tropical and subtropical areas of Asia, especially in the wet Tropics. The pachymorph (sympodial or superposed in such a way as to imitate a simple axis) rhizome system of clumping bamboos expands horizontally by only a short distance each year. The shoots emerge in a tight or open habit (group), depending on the species; common bamboo has open groups. Regardless of the degree of openness of each species’ clumping habit, none of the clumpers are considered invasive. New culms can only form at the very tip of the rhizome. The Bambuseae are a group of perennial evergreens in subfamily Bambusoideae, characterized by having three stigmas and tree-like behavior, that are in turn of the true grass family Poaceae.