This Giant or River Cane is the tall American native species of Bamboo that actually can get to 25 feet high in the deep South near water, and its culms or canes get to 1 inch in diameter. Its native range is from central Florida to east Texas to southern Kansas to southern Illinois to southern New York in moist to draining wet soils. It spreads by underground runners to form a colony, though not real quickly. Its foliage is lighter and thinner than similar east Asian bamboo in this genus. It used to be much more common in the 18th and 19th centuries, making up "canebrakes" that were large colonies of thick vegetation. It seems that fires and canopy disturbance of forest helped it a lot to form those thick, large colonies. Native Americans used the stems for basketry. It is sold by a few specialty and mail order nurseries as: Tennessee Whole Sale Nursery that sells rhizomes; Wilson Bros Gardens; Bamboo Garden in North Plains, Oregon; West Coast Oasis Bamboo Garden in Santa Rosa, California; Missouri Nursery Native Plants south of Jefferson City, Missouri; Maya Gardens Inc. in Eugene, Oregon; Amazon.com; and eBay. In late October of 2023 I unexpectantly came upon a young planting of Giant Cane (River Cane) in the Midwest Collection of Morton Arboretum in northeast Illinois that is USDA Zone 5.

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