A very tall, large-culmed, grayish-green bamboo, it grows in clumps consisting of a large number of closely growing culms, and typically reaches a height of 30 meters (98 feet), but one clump in Arunachal Pradesh, India reached a height of 42 meters (137 feet).

The record for the species, 18 inches (46 centimeters) in 24 hours, was set on July 29–30 of 1903 at Peradeniya Royal Botanical Gardens in Ceylon (Sri Lanka).

Culm walls are thin, rarely exceeding one inch (2.5 centimeters) in thickness[7] branching only at the top.

[8] Dendrocalamus giganteus is native to India, Myanmar, Thailand and China's Yunnan province.

Its habitat is in forests and on river banks, from sea level to 2,000 metres (6,600 ft) altitude.