With the increasing pollution caused by plastic products, people’s awareness of environmental protection has gradually increased. Based on the advantages of China’s bamboo resources and bamboo industry, the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan launched the ‘Utilizing bamboo as a sustainable alternative to plastic’ initiative in November 2022 to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This initiative provides a nature-based solution for global sustainable development, which will have a profound impact on promoting global green development, industrial science and technology, social services, cultural exchanges, and other fields. It has a huge market capacity and application potential. This study aims to understand the research status, hotspots, development trends, and prospects of this initiative. WoS and China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) were searched for the relevant literature on ‘utilizing bamboo as a sustainable alternative to plastic bamboo as plastic’ and ‘bamboo resources’ from the establishment of the database to 2024. Bibliometric methods and VOSviewer were used to analyze 1855 literatures with the above two keywords published in the Web of Science core set database from 2000 to 2024. A visual analysis was performed on the number of publications, national research institutions, researchers, number of citations, and research topics of the literature. For example, China, the United States, and India ranked in the top three in terms of the number of articles published, with 1103, 267, and 167, respectively. China had the highest number of citations, reaching 26,607. At the same time, the literature with ‘bamboo’ as the keyword in CNKI was analyzed to understand the species of bamboo currently studied. A literature investigation was carried out around the resource cultivation of the bamboo industry in our country, and it was found that the research on ‘use bamboo as plastic’ and ‘bamboo resources’ had been valued by scholars at home and abroad, and had formed a relatively stable research group. Using scientific and technological innovation to improve the product quality of ‘bamboo instead of plastic’, expanding its application scope and market demand, and realizeing the sustainable industry development of ‘bamboo instead of plastic’ is the current research hotspot and the future development direction.

This study elucidates the taxonomic position of Indosasa sangzhiensis in considering whether it belongs to Indosasa or Chimonobambusa. Based on morphological and molecular phylogenetic evidence, our results explicitly indicated that I. sangzhiensis should be a member of Chimonobambusa, rather than Indosasa, and is a distinct species closely related to C. communis, C. opienensis and C. puberula. Thus, the new combination Chimonobambusa sangzhiensis (B.M.Yang) N.H.Xia & Z.Y.Niu is made. A detailed description as well as two color plates of this species are also provided.

Indosasa gigantea is a bamboo with great economical value, but its generic designation has been controversial for a long time. This study aims to ascertain whether I. gigantea belongs to Indosasa or Acidosasa, based on morphological and molecular evidence from both plastome and single-copy nuclear orthologous genes. The results of phylogenetic analyses, based on plastid genomes and nuclear gene sequences, both strongly supported that I. gigantea is distantly related to other members of Indosasa, but clustered with Acidosasa glauca, the type species of Acidosasa. Further morphological studies demonstrated that I. gigantea is conspecific with A. glauca. Thus, I. gigantea was proposed as a synonym of A. glauca. Colour plates as well as a detailed description of this species are also provided.

The results of phylogenetic analysis, based on the whole chloroplast genome and morphological study support the transfer of a long ignored bamboo species, Sasa gracilis, to the recently established genus, Sinosasa, in this study. Morphologically, this species differs from all the other known Sinosasa species by having very short (2–3 mm) foliage leaf inner ligules, which is unusual in this genus. A revised description of its morphology and colour photos are also provided.

Pseudosasa was confirmed as polyphyletic by recent phylogenetic analyses, with Chinese species of Pseudosasa distantly related to those from Japan. Among the Chinese species of Pseudosasa, Pseudosasa pubiflora is a morphologically unique as well as taxonomically problematic species endemic to South China, of which the generic designation is still uncertain. Molecular analyses based on both plastid and nuclear genomic data demonstrated that this species is closest to the recently published genus Sinosasa. Morphologically, the two are somewhat similar to each other in flowering branches developing at the nodes of every order of branches, raceme-like units of inflorescence with 3–5 short spikelets, each spikelet with few florets including a rudimentary one at the apex, and each floret with 3 stamens and 2 stigmas. However, P. pubiflora is very different from Sinosasa species in many reproductive and vegetative characters, such as the morphology of paracladia (lateral spikelet “pedicels”), the absence or existence of pulvinus at the base of paracladia, the relative length of the upper glume and the lowest lemma, the shape of lodicules and primary culm buds, the branch complement, the morphology of nodes, culm leaves and dried foliage leaf blades, and the number of foliage leaves per ultimate branchlet. The morphological and molecular evidence warrants recognition of a new genus to accommodate this unique species, which is here named Kengiochloa. After consulting related literature and examination of herbarium specimens or specimen photos, a taxonomic revision of K. pubiflora and its synonyms was made, and it was confirmed that four names, viz. P. gracilis, Yushania lanshanensis, Arundinaria tenuivagina and P. parilis, should be merged with K. pubiflora, while Indocalamus pallidiflorus and Acidosasa paucifolia are distinct species.

Neomicrocalamus and Temochloa are closely-related genera for which ‘inflorescence’ structures were incompletely understood and difficult to reconcile. After re-examining the inflorescence morphology, the so-called ‘spikelets’ of both genera as described should instead be recognised as pseudospikelets with mostly inactive axillary buds. The new bamboo taxa, comprising two varieties of a new species, are placed in Temochloa, representing a new genus record for China and Vietnam.