Fargesia is a genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 of medium to small mountain clumping bamboos, found in alpine

Alpine climate

Alpine climate is the average weather for a region above the tree line. This climate is also referred to as mountain climate or highland climate....

 conifer forest

Forest

A forest, also referred to as a wood or the woods, is an area with a high density of trees. As with cities, depending where you are in the world, what is considered a forest may vary significantly in size and have various classification according to how and what of the forest is composed...

s of East Asia

East Asia

East Asia or Eastern Asia is a subregion of Asia that can be defined in either geographical or cultural terms...

. They are known in Chinese as jian zhu , meaning "arrow bamboo". They can be found in China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 south to Vietnam

Vietnam

Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...

 and west to the eastern slopes of the Himalayas

Himalayas

The Himalaya Range or Himalaya Mountains Sanskrit: Devanagari: हिमालय, literally "abode of snow"), usually called the Himalayas or Himalaya for short, is a mountain range in Asia, separating the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau...

. There are currently about 90 recognised species, but morphological and genetic analysis has led to many being transferred to the genera Thamnocalamus

Thamnocalamus

Thamnocalamus is a genus of clumping bamboo. These species are found from the mountains of East Asia and Africa. They are similar to the genus Fargesia, which is sometimes put in synonymy with Thamnocalamus....

, Yushania

Yushania

Yushania is a genus of bamboo always of the family Poaceae and now of the woody bamboo tribe Bambuseae and the supertribe Bambusodae which have both been experiencing many name changes....

 and Borinda

Borinda

Borinda is a genus of clumping bamboos erected in 1994 by Stapleton and previously included in the genera Fargesia and Yushania. They have been recognized to present different flowers and shorter rhizomes than Yushanias....

, while others are still incertae sedis

Incertae sedis

, is a term used to define a taxonomic group where its broader relationships are unknown or undefined. Uncertainty at specific taxonomic levels is attributed by , , and similar terms.-Examples:*The fossil plant Paradinandra suecica could not be assigned to any...

. The scientific name was given in honour of the French missionary and amateur botanist Père Paul Guillaume Farges

Paul Guillaume Farges

Paul Guillaume Farges was a French missionary, botanist and plant collector, based for much of his life in China, serving at Chongqing from 1892 until his death....

.

Fargesias are some of the world's most hardy bamboos, and they do not spread vigorously. Common bamboos in the genus Fargesia are essential foods for the pandas, and the recent flowering of Fargesia nitida has had a devastating effect.

Because Fargesias are becoming more well-known for their thick clumping habits, they have become cheaper and available at many nurseries.