Dendrocalamus brandisii

teddy bear bamboo

Bamboos within the genus Dendrocalamus are often classified as “timber bamboos” because of the size and strength of their culms, which make them useful for applications such as lumber for house construction, scaffolding, bridges, furniture, and flooring. Bamboo internodes (the stem rings) extend throughout the entire center of bamboo culms so buckets and cooking pots can be made from stem segments of these large bamboos. Some Dendrocalamus bamboos can grow so rapidly that they produce audible screeches as the culms pass through their sheaths!

For hundreds of years the Chinese valued rhinoceros horn as an aphrodisiac and a treatment for impotence. It was discovered that the rhizome of a certain species of Dendrocalamus could be harvested and carefully prepared to be almost indistinguishable from rhinoceros horn. The money being made from this was too good to keep the counterfeiters from limiting supply, which eventually led to the unveiling of the deception, as it didn’t make sense so many rhino horns were becoming available when the animal was becoming ever more endangered.

This particular species, although you wouldn’t know it when it is young, is one of the tallest species of bamboo, able to reach up to 120ft. tall! Come back in a decade or so and maybe we’ll have a “Bamboo suite” perched in the tops of this plant, which would surely have the best views available in the Florida Keys!