Family: Poaceae

High Risk Traits:

• Elevation range exceeds 1000 m, demonstrating environmental versatility
  
• Thrives in tropical climates
  
• Naturalized elsewhere (although no evidence from Hawaiian Islands)
  
• Regarded as an environmental weed elsewhere
  
• Potentially allelopathic
  
• Other Bambusa species have become invasive
  
• Toxic if eaten by horses
  
• Tolerates many soil types
  
• Forms dense, monospecific stands
  
• Reproduces vegetatively by rhizomes and fragments
  
• Water can move rhizome fragments
  
• Able to be pollarded and can resprout after cutting

Low Risk Traits:

• Not naturalized in the Hawaiian Islands despite widespread cultivation
  
• Unarmed (no spines, thorns, or burrs)
  
• Palatable to animals (despite toxicity to horses)
  
• Ornamental
  
• Not known to produce seeds
  
• As a sympodial bamboo, spreads more slowly than monopodial (runner) bamboos
  
• Reaches maturity in 80+ years (and does not produce seeds)
  
• Lack of seed production limits long-distance dispersal
  
• Herbicides may provide effective control