Melocanna baccifera (Roxb.) Kurz locally known as muli bans, is the predominant bamboo species of Bangladesh. In Bangladesh at occurs naturally in the forests of Chittagong, Chittagong Hill Tracis, Sylhcl, Cox’s Bazar and northern part of Mymcnsing. According to Gamble (1896), the muli bamboo is naturally distributed throughout Eastern Bengal and Burma from Garo and Khasia Hill to Chittagong and Aracan, and again in Tcnasscrim. McClure (1966) reported that the natural home of this plant apparently is “in the Hill
Tracts of East Bengal”. The species occurs both as undergrowth in many of the timber stands and as pure bamboo vegetation over extensive areas mainly on well drained slopes specially in the forest openings. It constitutes 98% of bamboo vegetation in Kassalong Reserve, 65% in Rankhcon Reserve of Chittagong, Sylhcl and northern part of Mymcnsing and more than 70% of the total forest bamboo resource (Chowdhury 1984). It is more or less an evergreen species. The clumps arc diffused and open producing clums at varying interval in all directions due to underground elongated (1-2 m) rhizome necks developed from the ramiflying sympodial rhizome system (Banik 1980). Il is interesting to note that the natural habitat of this species is restricted to the high rainfall hilly areas (250-600 cm per annum) of the world. The species with net-like extensive rhizome system might have been selected naturally in the region for protecting the forest soil from
erosion. Besides this ccologic importance, muli bamboo is the main raw material for rural housing and also die principal source of withes for making basketry and matting. The suitability of making paper by muli bamboo was demonstrated about 70 years ago by Railt (1929). In 1954, the Kamaphuli Paper Mill was established at Kaptai by utilizing the total natural stands of bamboos of whose M. baccifera provides 85-100 per cent (McClure 1966). Moreover, another industrial product, high quality rayon, is also being produced in the Mills by using muli as raw material. Thus, both from ccologic and economic points of view, M. baccifera is an important bamboo resource for Bangladesh.