I was told this was a lako bambusa but the new growth is popping out red and i haven't seen other lakos do this. Can somebody help me ID this?

Here is a link to my photo http://i581.photobucket.com/albums/ss25 ... 3/lako.jpg

Any help would be appreciated!!!

I think that unless you find other reason to suspect a mis-ID, I'd ignore the red. Shoots, particularly on young plants/divisions will often betray the species and I've seen unusual coloration before that I suspect is somehow environmental.

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Brad Salmon, zone 5b/6 Southern Indiana
Winters -20 to -25C. Summers 30 to 35C , humid. 115 cm annual precipitation, frost free from May through early October. 259.3 meters elevation. Growing 150+ species. http://www.needmorebamboo.com/

I haven't divided this plant and its been in this large pot for about 2 years or so. Is that considered young for a bamboo? I'm new to collecting bamboo so please excuse any dumb questions

The shoot looks cool hervey!!!!!

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40 miles N.E of st louis

I expect to see the shoots look different until the plant is 5 years or older - on average. For whatever reason, they can look different each year until then plus I think that the particular weather happening when a given shoot appears can also affect the look. For your plant I would wait to see what the next few shoots look like - will they all be red? Who knows but I bet that they are not. Even if they are then I'd ignore the coloration and consider the overall form of the shoot - does it look correct for the species? But you have to be careful with that as even the look will change on the juveniles.

In a thread here a few years back I was asking folks for ID help on a shoot that came up in an isolated grove that could not have been easily invaded by another grove. This shoot was anatomically wrong, and wrong in coloration, yet over time it proved to be the same species as the rest of the grove, just a rogue shoot.

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Brad Salmon, zone 5b/6 Southern Indiana
Winters -20 to -25C. Summers 30 to 35C , humid. 115 cm annual precipitation, frost free from May through early October. 259.3 meters elevation. Growing 150+ species. http://www.needmorebamboo.com/

It's B. lako.