Hardy bomboo of rapid spreading habit, 12 feet high with a conspicuous glaucous band beneath each node and the upper half of the internode at first often glaucous. Lower culm sheaths have irregular, ill-defined, brownish-black blotches. Lanceolate leaves, of which there are 30 or 4 on a branchlet, have usually 5 pairs of secondary veins; the leaves do not curl so quickly when the branches are cut as do those of most bamboos.