A large clump of Black Bamboo is found next to the tiger's night house.  It is grown on the island of Bali and in some locations on Sumatra, the name it is known by there is Pring Wulung; Balinese for "black bamboo", "pring" is the word that means "bamboo".  This bamboo can grow to a height of more than forty feet.

Notice the culm leaves ready to fall from the culm in the photo on the right.

The delicate leaves of weeping bamboo near the educational building are Mexican Weeping Bamboo.  This bamboo is drought tolerant and easy to grow.  It has a lacy and drooping effect and can grow to more than twenty feet.  It is a clumping bamboo but can spread several feet in each direction yearly.

Bamboo is classified as a woody member of the grass family, Gramineae; but some taxonomists feel it should be in a family of its own; Bambuseaceae.  There are about 1500 species of bamboo that are divided into about 80 genera.  These are divided into two kinds: running or ‘monopodial’, and clumping or ‘sympodial’ with entirely different growth patterns.  There are only clumping varieties in the zoo collection.

The clumping bamboo grows from buds on rhizomes.  In some, the young shoots are edible, being 98% water.  The shoots called culm are wrapped with culm leaves, which provide strength until the pole develops enough fiber to become self-supporting.  These culm leaves are attached to the nodes and in most species die and drop off when they are no longer needed.  Most culms are hollow, woody and round which, are divided into compartments by the nodes.

The large clumping bamboo collection at the zoo has been donated and planted by Darlene Lundstrom, Len Lundstrom, and the Bamboo Society.