The History and Current Situation of Resources and Development Trend of the Cultivated Bamboos in China

China has the most abundant bamboo diversity resources in the world with a long history of bamboo cultivation. As early as 3,000 years ago, in the Zhou Dynasty, the Chinese began to build bamboo gardens. The authors firstly reviewed the development history of the Chinese bamboo cultivation. Furthermore the current situation of bamboo diversity resources and developing trend of bamboo cultivated in China was summarized. In "Iconographia Bambusoidearum Sinicarum" and the other papers published recently, China was recorded with 43 genera and 711 species, 52 cultivars, 98 forms, with a total number of 861 taxa of Bambusoideae plants (including some introduced bamboo taxa). Among these taxa, 11 genera including 72 taxa are native and valid in accordance with the "International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants". These bamboos are all of the cultivated ones. The cultivated bamboos mentioned above are generally grouped into three categories: (1) the bamboos were recorded historically as cultivated ones and now have also been widely planted, such as Bambusa multiplex 'Fernleaf'; (2) a few of the bamboos are widely cultivated but wild populations have not been found in nature, for example, Phyllostachys 'Heterocycla'; (3) some of these bamboos have been planted as ornamentals due to genetic variation with stable and peculiar traits in artificial cultivation condition, e. g., Bambusa multiplex 'Alphonso-karri'. In accordance with the "International Code of Nomenclature for Cultivated Plants", in this paper, 72 cultivated bamboo taxa were renamed. And the first checklist of the cultivated bamboo taxa in China is also included in this paper. At the same time, in order to clarify phylogenic relationship between the artificially cultivated bamboo taxa and natural bamboo ones, a comparative table between the artificially cultivated bamboos and their natural taxa is shown in this paper to facilitate further academic study and as reference for the professionals and technical staff.