Dendrocalamus asper(Schult. & Schult.f.) Backer

giant bamboo

WFO wfo-0000862301 Accepted WFO 2026-06 7 photographs CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–g · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Dendrocalamus asper, photographed by Anna Hess
fig. a Anna Hess, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-12-06 / obs. 58250998
Dendrocalamus asper, photographed by Anna Hess
fig. b Anna Hess, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 58251031
Dendrocalamus asper, photographed by Eduardo Chacón Madrigal
fig. c Eduardo Chacón Madrigal, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94338513
Dendrocalamus asper, photographed by Eduardo Chacón Madrigal
fig. d Eduardo Chacón Madrigal, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94338528
Dendrocalamus asper, photographed by Eduardo Chacón Madrigal
fig. e Eduardo Chacón Madrigal, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94338546
Dendrocalamus asper, photographed by Eduardo Chacón Madrigal
fig. f Eduardo Chacón Madrigal, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94338562
Dendrocalamus asper, photographed by Eduardo Chacón Madrigal
fig. g Eduardo Chacón Madrigal, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 94338907

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 18 botanical countries

Regions where Dendrocalamus asper is native: China South-Central, China Southeast, Taiwan, Andaman Is., Bangladesh, Borneo, Jawa, Laos, Lesser Sunda Is., Malaya, Maluku, Myanmar, New Guinea, Philippines, Sulawesi, Sumatera, Thailand, Vietnam China South-CentralChina SoutheastTaiwanBangladeshBorneoJawaLaosLesser Sunda Is.MalayaMalukuMyanmarNew GuineaPhilippinesSulawesiSumateraThailandVietnam Andaman Is.
Native distribution of Dendrocalamus asper, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Andaman Is. AND ASIA-TROPICAL
Bangladesh BAN
Borneo BOR
Jawa JAW
Laos LAO
Lesser Sunda Is. LSI
Malaya MLY
Maluku MOL
Myanmar MYA
New Guinea NWG
Philippines PHI
Sulawesi SUL
Sumatera SUM
Thailand THA
Vietnam VIE
China South-Central CHC ASIA-TEMPERATE
China Southeast CHS
Taiwan TAI

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.

Also published as 14 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 aspera Rumph.
  • Arundarbor bitung (Schult.f.) Kuntze
  • Arundo aspera (Schult. & Schult.f.) Oken
  • Arundo piscatoria Lour.
  • Bambusa aspera Schult. & Schult.f.
  • Bambusa bitung Schult.f.
  • Bambusa flagellifera Griff. ex Munro
  • Calamagrostis piscatoria (Lour.) Steud.
  • Dendrocalamus asper f. niger Hildebr.
  • Dendrocalamus flagellifer Munro
  • Gigantochloa aspera (Schult. & Schult.f.) Kurz
  • Schizostachyum bitung (Schult.f.) Steud.
  • Schizostachyum loriforme Munro
  • Sinocalamus flagellifer T.Q.Nguyen

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. 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.