40. Schizostachyum brachycladum (Kurz) Kurz

General description

Schizostachyum brachycladum is a clump-forming, perennial, evergreen bamboo. The culms are erect, straight, 10 - 15 metres long and 60 - 80mm in diameter. The internodes have a thin-wall 3 - 5mm thick, are 20 - 50cm long, smooth, cylindrical, and tapering. An important plant in the local economy, it is collected from the wild and also commonly cultivated in South-East Asia for its culms, which provide material for building, crafts, containers, pipes etc. The forms with yellow culms are often cultivated as ornamental.

Habit and Habitat

Tree form. Disturbed or secondary forest, rarely in undisturbed forest, at elevations up to 600 metres.

Distribution

Southeast Asia - Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia.

Uses

The young shoots are edible. The culms are widely used for purposes such as roofs (split lengthwise as for the Toraja rice barn and traditional house in Sulawesi), water containers, handicrafts, banana props and as a container for cooking glutinous rice ('lemang'). The culms are 10 - 15 metres long and 60 - 80mm in diameter with a thin wall that is easily split. The internodes are used for making water pipes to smoke tobacco; decorated with a pattern carved in low relief ('serobok'), also for various carved containers, for instance, the one used for holy wine served during the Gawai festival ('Garong basket'). The internodes are 20 - 50cm long.Traditionally, the soft inner part of the culms were chewed and washed to extract the fibres.

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