Young spikelet and mature spikelet . g. Caryopsis. Drawn by Priscilla Fawcett. From Correll and Correll 1982.

Wild bamboo (Lasiacis divaricata) is the smallest of the native bamboo-like grasses in southern Florida. Lasiacis was created in 1864 as Panicum sect. Lasiacis by German botanist August H.R.Grisebach. Later, in 1910, it was moved to generic rank by A.S.Hitchcock. The small plants (2 to 4 m; 6 to 12 feet) grow in southern Florida, the Bahamas, the West Indies from Cuba to Barbados, and from Baja California to Veracruz, and south to Peru and Argentina. In much of its range, uses of the grass overlap with uses of the other plants with the names “cane” and “reed” (see Arundinaria, Phragmites).