Black Bamboo

Black Bamboo
This genus of about 80 species of medium large bamboos occurs in India, China, and Burma. It includes some of the most ornamental bamboos for gardens and large containers, with graceful foliage and rather zigzag canes, which are often beautifully colored and patterned. Less invasive than most, they may be planted as focal points in lawns or large borders. Bamboos are of great economic and cultural importance in Asia, with a wide range of uses, from furniture and utensils, paper, and musical instruments to scaffolding, fishing rods, and drainpipes. The stems are particularly strong, due to their high silica content. Young shoots of many species, notably Phyllostachys pubescens, are edible, and large quantities are canned for export. Various species are used medicinally in China, apparently interchangeably, as zhu. The first mention in medical texts of bamboo sap (zhu li) and stem shavings (zhu ru) was made c.CE500. A siliceous substance, known as tabasher, or tabashir (tian zhu huang), is used in similar ways to the dried sap. It occurs in fragile, angular concretions, up to the size of a hen's egg, inside the lower internodes.

Evergreen, rhizomatous, clump-forming bamboo with arching, slender stems, turning from green-brown to black in the second or third year, and narrow, lanceolate leaves, to 13cm (5in) long.

Common Name:

Black Bamboo

Other Names:

Kuro-chiku

Botanical Name:

Phyllostachys nigra

Genus:

Phyllostachys

Family:

Poaceae

Cultivation:

Moist, well-drained, rich soil in sun or dappled shade, with shelter from cold, drying winds. Remove dead stems at any time. Clumps may be thinned in spring to leave only the strongest stems.

Propagation:

By division in spring during wet weather; by cuttings of young rhizomes in late winter. Divisions from open ground do not transplant well and should be nurtured in pots under cover until late spring. Small divisions are more successful than large clumps.

Harvest:

Leaves are collected during the growing season, young stems are cut for shavings in summer, and roots are lifted in winter; all are dried for use in decoctions. Sap is pressed from young stems and evaporated.

Native Region:

E and C China

Height:

3-10m (10-30ft)

Width:

Indefinite

Varieties:

Boryana
Has green to yellow-green canes with purple-brown streaks.

var. henonis
syn. Henonis
Has bright green stems that age yellow-green, and glossy foliage.

Hardiness:

Z6-10

Parts Used:

Leaves, stem shavings, roots, sap

Properties:

A sweet, cooling, diuretic and expectorant herb that lowers fever, controls vomiting, checks bleeding, and is effective against bacterial infections.

Medicinal Uses:

Internally for lung infections with cough and phlegm (stem, sap); vomiting, nosebleed (leaves, stem); fevers especially infantile convulsions (leaves, roots); rabies (roots).

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