Bambusa textilis

Bambusa textilis, also known as slender bamboo, clumping bamboo and weaver's bamboo, is a species of bamboo in the Poaceae (grasses) family that is native to China. The subspecies ''var. gracilis'' is heavily cultivated in Australia.

Description
Slender bamboo is a giant, densely leaved, upright bamboo, that grows in a tight clump up to 6 to 10 meters high and 2 meters in width at a fast rate and has a stem size of 3 cm.

Having elegant leaves that are lanceolate shaped, 9-25 x 1-2.5 cm long, and greenish blue-hued culm that is glossy and leathery, its long green internodes, 35–60 cm, change to yellow during prolonged sunlight exposure. Despite being an evergreen, some leaf loss can be expected in winter, but this depends on the location and microclimate.

The stalk and the rhizome are one, making it a non-invasive plant. The top part of the short rhizome has buds, one of which grows into another very truncated rhizome that then turns upward to surface from the ground as a subsidiary culm close to the parent.

Distribution
In its native southern China, it usually found near rivers, on hills and villages at low altitudes in the Anhui, Guangdong, Fujian and Guangxi provinces. It has been naturalized in Hawaii, Florida, Colombia and Puerto Rico.

Cultivation
It is cultivated in particular to constitute hedges or privacy screens in suburban yards and can be planted in subtropical/tropical gardens where it can complement the native rainforest flora, and as well as in garden beds near a fence. It can also provide both noise and wind break, in addition to tolerating winds and temperatures as low as -10 °C. Growing best in full sun to part shade, it may benefit from some mulch and nitrogen fertiliser.

The variety ''var. gracilis is one of the most popular bamboos, especially in Australia, which is known as Gracilis bamboo'', that forms a sightly slender clump and grows no more than 8 metres high. It reaches maturity within 3–5 years, depending on the weather and soil. A gracilis in a 200mm container would usually grow to around 3 to 4 meters in 12 months. The glabra variety features more white on the lower areas of the internodes, giving the plant a striped appearance, and the fusca variety is larger, growing up to 12 meters and would top a 3 storey building.

Varieties

 * B. textilis var. fusca
 * B. textilis var. glabra
 * B. textilis var. gracilis
 * B. textilis var. maculata
 * B. textilis var. textilis