How Fast Does Bamboo Actually Grow?

How fast does bamboo actually grow? Faster than you would ever guess. Some species shoot up to 91 centimeters (36 inches) in a single day. That is nearly a full yard while you sleep. No other land plant on Earth grows that fast. And here is the twist: bamboo is not even a tree. It is a grass. We will show you how fast the different species really grow, why bamboo can pull off this speed, and what happens to it after 120 years.

How fast does bamboo grow per day?

Bamboo grows between 3 and 40 centimeters per day depending on the species. The world record, verified by Guinness World Records, sits at 91 centimeters (36 inches) in a single day. That makes bamboo the fastest growing plant on Earth. For context: a daisy needs several weeks to add the same 91 centimeters.

In a backyard, things move slower. Fargesia, the popular clumping bamboo used for privacy hedges, adds about 2.5 to 3.5 centimeters a day. Phyllostachys species manage 15 to 25 centimeters. And the tropical giant or Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) can reach up to one meter per day under warm, humid conditions. You could almost watch it grow.

Why does bamboo grow so fast?

The secret is in the blueprint. A tree builds its wood cell by cell, which takes time. Bamboo works differently. A new shoot already contains all of its segments from day one, stacked like a collapsed telescope. As it grows, every one of those segments stretches at the same time. The cells are already there, they just fill with water and expand. That is why bamboo shoots straight up instead of slowly thickening.

Is bamboo a tree or a grass?

Bamboo is a grass. Botanically it belongs to the grass family (Poaceae), just like wheat or your lawn. That makes it the tallest grass in the world. There are over 1,400 bamboo species. The smallest stay knee-high, the largest are giants: giant bamboo (Dendrocalamus giganteus) reaches around 30 meters, and individual culms of Dendrocalamus sinicus have been measured at up to 46 meters (151 feet). That is as tall as a 15-story building. From a grass.

How well can you estimate numbers like these? Test yourself with our nature estimation questions. Free, runs in your browser, perfect for your next road trip.

What happens to bamboo after 120 years?

Here is where it gets interesting. Many bamboo species flower only once in their entire life, and extremely rarely at that. For some species, 40 to 130 years pass between two flowerings. The wild part: every plant of a species flowers at roughly the same time, no matter where in the world it grows. Scientists call this gregarious flowering. It is as if each plant carries the same internal alarm clock. And then comes the end: after flowering, almost the whole population dies. The plant pours all its energy into seeds and checks out. Those seeds grow the next generation, which again needs a good hundred years before its own first bloom.

So bamboo is a grass that grows faster than any other plant, yet waits over a century for its first flower. If records like these grab you, check out how old the oldest tree in the world is, or put your knowledge to the test with our nature estimation questions.