It is also a typical “good luck” gift and the number of stems has a symbolism. It grows on the bottom of the rainforest floor in Africa and it is typically a house plant used as a Feng Shui cure. The scientific name is Dracaena Sanderiana. I’ll keep it short for you: Lucky Bamboo or million bamboo is a completely different plant. Expect a long lecture about the characteristics of bamboo and how Lucky Bamboo is not part of this plant group. If you want to start a heated conversation with a botanist or bamboo geek, say that Lucky Bamboo is bamboo. Photo Source: Flickr Lucky Bamboo or Dracaena sanderiana So, what are these bamboo imposters? Why do people confuse them with bamboo? Let’s have a look at these plants that are commonly mistaken for bamboo. 6 bamboo-like plants commonly confused with bamboo There hasn’t been any scientific results when bamboo flowers because it can be anything from every year to every 100 years. Bamboo leaves are lance-shaped and linear.īamboo flowers irregularly. This is another reason why people believe bamboos are trees. The number and position of branches depends on the species.Īlthough bamboo is called the evergreen plant, it still loses its foliage every year. Most species grow branches on culm nodes. Then there is clumping bamboo, which only grows upwards from a simple rhizome. Running bamboo develops horizontal stems underground. There are two different types of bamboos, which is depending on the rhizomes. It can be lush green, black, dark green, yellow, light green, or red.

The color of the culms depends on the species. The stem, or culm, is jointed with solid nodes. There are 91 genera of bamboo documented.

So, what makes bamboo a bamboo? Bamboo belongs to the grass family, also known as Poaceae. There are some other plants as well that have similarities with the fastest growing grass in the world – bamboo.īefore we take a look at them, let’s see what characteristics bamboo has in order to separate all these plants from each other! What characteristics have bamboo plants? The most popular plant that looks like bamboo is Lucky Bamboo. Today, I thought I would go over some of the most common bamboo-like plants – just for the fun of it. There are several plants out there that are often mistaken for bamboo or that act as “bamboo imposters”.

Carbonized bamboo vs hard maple bow