Botanical Name - Bambusa Schreb.; F.B.I. VII-385.

----- B. arundinacea, Willd.; F.B.I. VII-395. Brandi's Ind. Trees, 671. Gamble's Ind. Timbers, 748. (Syn. B. spinosa, Roxb.) Vern. Bans, Bans-bung (the cut bamboo), Hind. ; Bongu, Bongudu, Yedru, Mulu yedru, Tel. Mandga, Mar. The Spiny Bamboo.

----- A large spinescent bamboo. Culms, bright green, shining, attaining 80-100 ft. in height by 6-7 in. diam., graceful and curving, branched from the base ; nodes prominent, lower with long horizontal shoots armed with 2-3 recurved spines ; internodes up to 18 in., often subangular, the smaller flattened on one side ; walls 1-2 in., thick. Branchlets with short sharp spines at the nodes. Culm-sheaths 12-15 by 9-12 in., coriaceous, outside hairy and orange-yellow when young, shining and prominently ribbed on the inside ; blade triangular, up to 4 in., acuminate, concave, glabrous without, matted within with dark bristles ; margins involute, decurrent on the sheath, wavy, long and thickly ciliate, hardly auricled ; ligule short, narrow, entire or fringed with white hairs. Leaves up to 8 by 1 in., linear or linear-lanceolate, glabrous or slightly pubescent beneath ; tip sharp, stiff ; base rounded, ciliate near the petiole ; petiole 1-10 in., often swollen ; main nerves 4-6, with pellucid glands at intervals ; sheath with short auricles, thickly ciliate when young. Panicle enormous, often occupying the whole culm. Spikelets about 5 in a cluster, 1/2 - 2/3 in. long, lanceolate ; acute, bearing a few male flowers above the 2-sexual ones. Empty glumes 0-2, ovate-lanceolate, acute or mucronate, many-nerved. Fig.-glumes 3-7, like the empty, lower bisexual, upper male, with 2 or 3 uppermost imperfect. Paleae 2-keeled, keels ciliate. Lodicules 3. small, imbricate. Stamens 6, slender drooping ; filaments free ; anthers yellow, obtuse. Ovary elliptic oblong ; style short ; stigmas 2-3. Caryopsis (grain) furrowed on one side, ending in a short beak formed by the base of the style ; pericarp thin adherent.

----- This magnificent bamboo is the principal species throughout the Warangal forests, as well as north of the Godavari in Adilabad, and in probably also found in Amrabad. It attains a very large size, 80-100 ft. in height, and 6-7 in. diam., but the culms are difficult. to extract in full lengths on account of their interlacing and being so mixed up with thorny branchlets, that they must be cut into short peices before they can be freed from the clump. It is used for building, scaffolding, mats, baskets and various other purposes. Weight of wood 45-50 lbs. per c. ft. Flowering occurs gregariously in any given locality at intervals of about 30 years, and the grain is eagerly sought for as food. The flowering in Warangal was in the famine year, 1899-1900, and it was reported to have flowered again in 1999. Other grigarous flowering years noted are 1922 and 1939, in Laxatipet Taluka of Adilabad District.

----- B. VULGARIS, Schrad. ; F.B.I. VII-391. A large handsome species native of java, commonly cultivated in various places in india ; in Hyderabad to be seen in the Public Gardens. It is unarmed and the culms are bright yellow or green or mottled green and yellow, and considerably smaller than the last.