Phyllostachys edulis (tortoise shell bamboo)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Phyllostachys edulis, photographed by naturewatchwidow — fig. a naturewatchwidow, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-12-03 / obs. 171166448

Phyllostachys edulis, photographed by harum.koh — fig. b harum.koh, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 89715350

Phyllostachys edulis, photographed by tlaloc27 — fig. c tlaloc27, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 31688064

Phyllostachys edulis, photographed by Aaron Liston — fig. d Aaron Liston, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 9699732

Phyllostachys edulis, photographed by siznax — fig. h siznax, CC0 1.0 / obs. 22961431

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 4 botanical countries

Native distribution of Phyllostachys edulis, 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.

Region	TDWG code	Continent
China North-Central	CHN	ASIA-TEMPERATE
China South-Central	CHC
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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 354 observations

Condition	5th percentile	Median	95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low	-1.9 °C	-0.2 °C	9.6 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high	23.5 °C	29.5 °C	31.5 °C
Annual rainfall	1,392 mm	1,617 mm	4,330 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter	137 mm	202 mm	447 mm

It is found where winters bring light frost. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 354 research-grade observations of Phyllostachys edulis 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 84 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.

Bambos moosoo Siebold
Bambusa edulis Carrière
Bambusa heterocycla Carrière
Bambusa mitis Carrière
Bambusa pubescens Pradelle
Bambusa pubescens Carrière
Phyllostachys bicolor Crouzet
Phyllostachys edulis f. albovariegata Ohrnb.
Phyllostachys edulis f. aureostriata K.Ueda
Phyllostachys edulis f. aureovariegata (Uchida) Ohrnb.
Phyllostachys edulis f. bicolor (Nakai) M.J.Lai & D.Y.Hong
Phyllostachys edulis f. epruinosa G.H.Lai
Phyllostachys edulis f. gimmei (Muroi & Kasahara) Ohrnb.
Phyllostachys edulis f. gracilis C.S.Chao & Renvoize
Phyllostachys edulis f. heterocycla (Carrière) V.N.Vassil.
Phyllostachys edulis f. holochrysa (T.H.Wen) Ohrnb.
Phyllostachys edulis f. huamozhu (T.H.Wen) C.S.Chao & Renvoize
Phyllostachys edulis f. lutea (T.H.Wen) Ohrnb.
Phyllostachys edulis f. luteosulcata (T.H.Wen) C.S.Chao & Renvoize
Phyllostachys edulis f. nabeshimana (Muroi) C.S.Chao & Renvoize
Phyllostachys edulis f. obliguinoda (Z.P.Wang & N.X.Ma) Ohrnb.
Phyllostachys edulis f. obtusangula (S.Y.Wang) Ohrnb.
Phyllostachys edulis f. purpureoculmis P.X.Zhang, G.H.Lai & H.F.Zhang
Phyllostachys edulis f. purpureosulcata P.X.Zhang, G.H.Lai & H.F.Zhang

and 60 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.