Dendrocalamus giganteus  

Dendrocalamus giganteus Wall. ex Munro

Family : Poaceae

Common Name : മുള (Mal)

    : Giant Bamboo(Eng)

IUCN Status : Least Concern

Culms 30-35 m tall, 18-25 cm in diameter, branched above, nodes hairy; internodes rather short, grey-green, ceraceous when young, walls thin; culm sheaths to 50 cm long, as broad at the base, deciduous, thinly strigose with golden hairs, top depressed; blade 13-38 cm long, 9 cm wide, decurrent into glabrous, stiff, brown, wavy auricles, narrowed above into a short point; ligule 5-13 cm long, black, its margin serrate. Leaves cuspidately acuminate, tips twisted, hairy beneath when young, midrib strong, nerves 12-16 pairs, with pellucid cross bars. Panicle very large, branchlets slender, curved; spikelet clusters to 2.5 cm broad, the clusters 1.5-2.5 cm apart; spikelets ovate, acute, several-flowered, 1-2 cm long. Glumes 2 or 3, ovate, mucronate, striate; florets 3-6; lemmas 3-6, thin, mucronate, many-nerved. Anthers 6, acuminate at tip. Style long, hirsute, sometimes divided into 2 stigmas; ovary hirsute, long-rostrate. Fruit oblong, ca. 6 mm long, obtuse, hirsute at apex.

Use: Dendrocalamus giganteus is used in construction and weaving. The shoots are edible

Distribution : Native of Myanmar