Culm sheaths are greenish in young plants, and turn brown when mature.

[2] verified bloomings having occurred in 1863, 1911, 1959, and 2007 with a precision exceeded only by Strobilanthes kunthiana[3][4][5] This flowering results in the phenomenon known as Mautam: the population of black rats burgeons owing to the plentiful food supply provided by the bamboo fruit (up to 80 tons/hectare[2]), and once this is exhausted, famine follows as the rats move on to consume local crops, notably in the Northeast Indian state of Mizoram.

The Jawaharlal Nehru Tropical Botanic Garden and Research Institute (JNTBGRI) Thiruvananthapuram conducted the study for 13 years between 2009 and 2022 on the flowering of Melocanna baccifera and its relation to the occurrence of 'rat floods' Another peculiarity of M. baccifera is that, like Rhizophora spp, its seeds can germinate while still attached to the mother plant, so that they drop to the ground as plantlets.

However the study conducted by JNTBGRI in 2016 found that the fruit actually contained very little protein and that the predation is mainly due to the high content of sugar.

The research findings are of K.C Koshy, B. Gopakumar, Anthony Sebastian, Ajikumaran Nair S , Anil John Johnson, Balaji Govindan and B Sabulal.

The flowering pattern and fruit production discovered through this study will be helpful to the foresters and people involved in the conservation of this bamboo.