Thorny bamboo (Bambusa bambos)

Bambusa bambos, the giant thorny bamboo, forms towering clumps along rivers and around villages across India. The base of each clump is a fortress of tangled, spiny branches, which is why farmers have long grown it as a living fence. Its young shoots are cooked as food after long boiling, and after its rare mass flowering its seeds are gathered as bamboo rice.

Botanical name: Bambusa bambos (L.) Voss
Family: Poaceae
Tamil: Mullumoonkil
Hindi: Kantabans
Parts used: Young shoot (after a long cook), Culm (craft)
Habit: Spiny clump bamboo; bamboo is a shop word
Last updated: 2026-10-25

How to recognise Thorny bamboo

Clumps are huge and dense, with tall, hollow, glossy green culms reaching twenty to thirty metres, arching at the top.

The lower nodes carry thick, curved thorny branches that interlace into an almost impenetrable thicket. That is the easiest field mark.

Leaves are narrow and fairly small for such a large bamboo.

Male bamboo, Dendrocalamus strictus, has thick-walled, often nearly solid culms and no thorny base.

Traditional use of Thorny bamboo

Village use

The culms are used for building, scaffolding, baskets and furniture, and the spiny clumps are planted as fences and windbreaks around fields and homesteads.

Indian village practice

Bamboo rice

When clumps flower, forest communities in Kerala and elsewhere collect the grain, called mulayari in Malayalam, and cook it like rice.

Kerala forest community practice

Ayurveda

Tabasheer, a silica-rich deposit found inside some culms, is the vamsha lochana of Ayurvedic preparations.

Ayurvedic materia medica

Modern notes on Thorny bamboo

Young shoots contain cyanogenic glycosides. Slicing, soaking and boiling in fresh water make them safe to eat.

Clumps flower gregariously at long intervals, often around forty years, and then die. That can leave villages and wildlife short of bamboo for years.

Thorny bamboo safety

Never eat raw shoots. The basal thorns can cause deep cuts.

Ecology and sourcing

It grows along rivers and in moist deciduous forest, and it is widely planted around villages from India to southern China.

Elephants feed heavily on it, and the clumps shelter many birds and small mammals.

Related plants

Also in Poaceae

Questions about Thorny bamboo

What older names does Bambusa bambos go by?

Bambusa arundinacea.

What is bamboo rice?

The grain produced when the bamboo flowers, collected and cooked by forest communities.

Why are the shoots boiled?

Raw shoots release cyanide; boiling removes it.

Sources

Educational page about a plant. It is not medical advice, not a diagnosis, and not an offer to sell. Traditional use is historical. If you need care, ask a licensed clinician. Questions: hello@meevamed.com.