Family: Poaceae

High Risk Traits:

• Elevation range exceeds 1000 m in tropical climates, demonstrating environmental versatility
  
• Thrives in tropical climates
  
• Naturalized in the Galapagos, and in several locations throughout Central and South America
  
• Vigorous, spreading species that may invade crops when grown in close proximity
  
• Armed at the base, lower branches strongly thorny with long straight thorns
  
• Potentially allelopathic
  
• Forms dense thickets in native range
  
• May produce viable seeds that can be dispersed by gravity, wind or people
  
• Able to coppice and resprout after cutting

Low Risk Traits:

• No reports of negative impacts where cultivated
  
• Non-toxic
  
• The most widely-grown and economically important bamboo in the New World
  
• A sympodial, or clumping bamboo
  
• Long time to reproductive maturity (35 years or more)
  
• Lack of seed production until possibly at the end of long life cycle would limit inadvertent dispersal