Botanical Name - Dendrocalamus strictus

----- D. strictus, Nees. ; F.B.I. VII - 404. Brandi's Ind. Trees , 675. Gamble's Ind. Timbers , 751. ( Syn. Bambusa stricta, Roxb ). Vern. Bans, Hind. ; Kanka, Yedru, Sadanapu Yedru. Tel. ' Male Bamboo.'

----- A tall unarmed bamboo. Culms 20-50 ft. by 2-3 in. diam., hollow in moist climates, solid in dry, young glaucous green, old yellowish ; nodes swollen, lower often rooting ; internodes 12-18 in. ; upper branches, decurved, slender and leafy. Culm-sheaths variable, lower 3-12 in., glabrous or strigose with yellow-brown hairs, top rounded, ciliate, slightly auricled ; blade triangular, hairy, especially within ; ligule narrow. Leaves deciduous, narrowed from the rounded petiole base to the twisted tip, 4-10 in. long ; mid-rib prominent nerves 3-6 pair with interposed pellucid glands ; sheath striate, hairy, auricle short, ciliate ; ligule narrow, numerous, in dense globose heads 1-1 1/1 in. diam. Glumes spinescent ; empty numerous ; fig-glumes 2-3 like the empty. Palea of lower flowers 2-keeled, of upper rounded, glabrous. Lodicules none. Ovary hairy above, often depressed ; style long ; stigma feathry, simple. Caryopsis shining, hairy only at the apex, 1/4 - 1/3 in. long, ovoid, beaked.

----- This bamboo is commonly known at the ' MALE BAMBOO.' It is very common throughout the State and is the most widely spread species throughout India and Burmah. It is very variable in size of culm and of cavity of the internodes. On dry hills, as in Aurangabad, the culms are generally quite solid, and it is to these that the term ' MALE BAMBOO ' chiefly has reference. In the damper forests of the Telingana, the culms grow larger and are usually hollow, with thick walls. The bamboos are strong and elastic. They are used for spear and lance-shafts, walking-sticks, for all purposes of building, basket and, mat-making, in the manufacture of cane furniture, agricultural and industrial implements, etc. This bamboo usually flowers gregariously in any given locality, but sporadic flowering of single clumps here and there in teh forests occur almost every year, but the seeds of such flowering are usually not fertile. A genera flowering of this species occured in 1906, 1921 and 1939 which were years of scascity and famine. The sees is eaten as a food-grain. A kind of manna is also produced on the culms which is eaten,