The generic name Bergbambos is derived from its Afrikaans common name bergbamboes, meaning ‘mountain bamboo’. The former generic name means ‘bush reed’ and is derived from Greek, thamno meaning ‘a bush’ and calamus meaning ‘a reed’. The species name tessellata means ‘tiled’ and refers to the mosaic-like rectangular pattern of the veins on the leaves, which can be seen through a lens.

The Bamboesberg (meaning ‘bamboo mountain’) receives its name from this plant, because it grows quite prolifically there. The name bamboo comes from bambu from the Kannada language of the Karnataka State in India, and was introduced to English through Indonesian, Malaysian and Portuguese.

Bergamboes is one of only 2 species of bamboo that are indigenous to South Africa. The other South African bamboo is Oxytenanthera abyssinica, known here as the Holy Venda Bamboo. It grows in woodland, grassland and thicket throughout tropical Africa.

Our species was first described by Nees in 1841 who placed it in the genus Nastus, and it was transferred to Arundinaria by Munro in 1868. Based on the structure of its inflorescence, its sympodial rhizomes and branching habit, which do not fit with Arundinaria, Soderstrom and Ellis undertook a comparative study of its leaf anatomy and epidermis, morphology and inflorescence (published in 1982), and concluded that it belongs in the genus Thamnocalamus, a genus of 5 species in the Himalayas and China. A 2013 study by Stapleton, which included molecular analysis, has concluded that our species shares equal similarity with the genera Thamnocalamus and Fargesia, but that it belongs in neither, and recognizes it as a distinct genus on its own. It has thus been renamed Bergbambos tessellata. Bergbambos is a monotypic genus, confined to the mountains of South Africa, Lesotho and Swaziland.