Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations
Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.
Native range 8 botanical countries
| Region | TDWG code | Continent |
|---|---|---|
| Assam | ASS | ASIA-TROPICAL |
| Bangladesh | BAN | |
| Cambodia | CBD | |
| Laos | LAO | |
| Myanmar | MYA | |
| Thailand | THA | |
| Vietnam | VIE | |
| China South-Central | CHC | ASIA-TEMPERATE |
Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.
Where it actually grows measured, from 1,432 observations
| Condition | 5th percentile | Median | 95th percentile |
|---|---|---|---|
| Coldest month, mean daily low | 9.7 °C | 19.0 °C | 23.9 °C |
| Warmest month, mean daily high | 24.4 °C | 29.5 °C | 34.3 °C |
| Annual rainfall | 924 mm | 2,103 mm | 4,050 mm |
| Rainfall in the driest quarter | 21 mm | 190 mm | 619 mm |
It is barely found anywhere that freezes. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 1,432 research-grade observations of Bambusa vulgaris that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.
This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.
Also published as 40 synonyms
A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.
- Arundarbor blancoi (Steud.) Kuntze
- Arundarbor fera (Oken) Kuntze
- Arundarbor mitis (Lour.) Kuntze
- Arundarbor monogyna (Blanco) Kuntze
- Arundarbor striata (Lodd. ex Lindl.) Kuntze
- Arundo fera Oken
- Arundo mitis Lour.
- Bambos mitis (Lour.) Poir.
- Bambusa auriculata Kurz
- Bambusa blancoi Steud.
- Bambusa fera (Oken) Miq.
- Bambusa humilis Rchb. ex Rupr.
- Bambusa latiflora (Balansa) T.Q.Nguyen
- Bambusa madagascariensis Rivière & C.Rivière
- Bambusa mitis (Lour.) Steud.
- Bambusa mitis Blanco
- Bambusa monogyna Blanco
- Bambusa nguyenii Ohrnb.
- Bambusa sieberi Griseb.
- Bambusa striata Lodd. ex Lindl.
- Bambusa thouarsii (Raspail) Kunth
- Bambusa vulgaris f. vittata (Rivière & C.Rivière) McClure
- Bambusa vulgaris f. vittata (Rivière & C.Rivière) T.P.Yi
- Bambusa vulgaris f. vulgaris
and 16 more.
Sourcesevery claim on this page
- World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
- iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
- Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
- Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.
We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.