1 — Native and Naturalized Species

This chapter includes both native (indigenous) and naturalized bamboo species, for a total of around 100 species. The number of native species counts is 80 to 90, and the naturalized ones are 10 to 16. Most species native to Thailand are also known to be native to one or more neighboring countries. There are remarkably few bamboo species endemic to Thailand, maybe a little more than 5, such as Dendrocalamus khoonmengii and Phuphanochloa speciosa. 

Collection data for many Thai bamboo species is scarce, so the pattern of the geographical distribution of Thai species remains vague. Many species have not been recollected for decades, or even for half a century or longer. 

Identifying Thai bamboo is a major challenge, mainly due to the lack of a national or regional floral publication on bamboo, such as the Flora of China for Chinese bamboo. For bamboo from southern Thailand, floral publications from Malaysia are of some help. For most bamboo species in Thailand, there is little more than their original publication of the 19th and 20th centuries, with descriptions often lacking some of the species' vegetative characteristics, which are needed in bamboo identification. 

About 35 living Thai bamboo specimens, most of which have been described in detail by their vegetative characteristics, could not be assigned to species. Additional living specimens could not be assigned to particular species with sufficient certainty. The main reason herein lies in the brief vegetative description in the original or secondary publication of most of the lesser-known Thai species, of which little herbarium material is available, sometimes only the herbarium material of the original description. Other reasons may be that, in some cases, the original location of a collected living specimen was recorded with insufficient precision, or the specimen was collected from a cultivated or naturalized population. Furthermore, it cannot be completely ruled out that a few collected specimens represent new, undescribed species.

Several widespread and useful bamboo species in Thailand may not be native and may have been introduced by humans on immigration routes many decades, centuries, or even millennia ago. Such bamboo species as Dendrocalamus asper and Bambusa spinosa (syn. B. blumeana) have become naturalized with numerous populations in the wild and are also sometimes cultivated on a large scale. 

Unidentified species are also included herein if they are considered native or naturalized. A botanical name might have been applied to a species with questionable identification. If identification is questionable, this is indicated by a question mark, or "sp." (as a replacement for the specific epithet) is added to a generic name, or a notice is given mainly under a "Comments" subheading. Application of a particular common (Thai) name does not constitute identification; common names are ambiguous, and there are no rules on how to apply them. 

Infraspecific taxa, e.g., var. (varietas), of indigenous and naturalized species, are also included herein. Cultivated varieties that are formally recognizable by their names, inserted in a pair of single quotation marks, and assigned to a native or naturalized species are also included in this chapter, regardless of whether the cultivated variety originated in Thailand or abroad. 

There are species from neighboring countries that occur in their regions near the border with Thailand. For about 15 such species, an occurrence in Thailand is not yet known, but the nature of the borders does not seem to be a natural barrier to the possible spread of the species. Therefore, such species have been added to this chapter, along with an explanatory note.