A tall graceful, thorny bamboo with curved branches. Young shoots deep purple with few white stripes. The tip of growing shoots become blackish or yellowish with curled auricles, ciliated blades erect, tip blunt, glabrous. Culms strong, hollow, dull to deep green, 10-30 m tall, 2.7-10 cm in diameter at base; nodes comparatively larger in diameter than the internodes, sheath scar thick, uniform, remnants of sheath fibre present, in young culms a whitish or brownish band of  pubescence above the nodes; supra nodal ring present, remnants of verticils of aerial root present on the supra nodal ridge up to 10th node; branch bud oval, 2-keeled, keels ciliate; internodes 15-30 cm long.