Distribution and habitat:  Throughout India upto 2,100 m elevation.

Botany: A tall thorny bamboo upto 30 m in height with many stems

• Stem: Orange-yellow stems tufted on stout root stock, nodes prominent, internodes upto 45 cm long,
• Leaf: Streaked, glabrous or puberulous beneath, base rounded, ciliate, tip stiff, midrib narrow, leaf sheath with a short bristly auricle, ligule short.
• Inflorescence: Glabrous Spikelets, yellow or yellowish green, in very long panicle, often occupying the whole stem, floral glumes 3-7 in number, the upper most 1-3 male or neuter, lodicules  3, hyaline, 1-3 nerved,  ciliate.
• Fruits: oblong grains, beaked by the style base, grooved on one side.

Uses: 

• The roots are useful in leprosy, skin diseases, burning sensations, discolourations, strangury, ring worm, Otorrhea, arthralgia and general debility.
• The leaves are useful in ophthalmopathy, lumbago, haemorrhoids, diarrhea, gonorrhoea, amanorrhoea, skin diseases and fever.
• The sprouts are useful in inflammations, ulcers and wounds and in strangury.
• The grains are useful in general debility and intestinal worms.
• Bamboo manna is useful in vomiting, jaundice, cardiac diseases, bronchitis, syphilis.

Agrotechnology

• Soil and climate: Thrives best in monsoon forest but become under shrub at temperate regions and at higher altitudes.
• Propagation: Since cultivation with the aid of seeds cannot be an annual occurrence, it is propagated usually by vegetative means by nodal cuttings, basal cane cuttings, rhizome cuttings, clump division and layering.