This commonly cultivated temperate bamboo is sometimes confused with Arundinaria, especially A. tecta (FNA 24). P. japonica usually has one delayed dominant branch at each node (sometimes rebranching distally), often about as thick as the culm (versus 1-3 subequal branches much narrower than the culm), and often outcurved from the culm. Its foliage leaves tend to be larger (mostly 15-35 x 1.5-5 cm versus 5-23 x 0.8-2 cm), the lower surfaces glabrous or "sporadically shortly red-brown tomentose" and pale to glaucous (versus glabrous or pubescent or pilose and not at all glaucous). Its culm sheaths are more persistent, lack auricles (versus usually present) and have persistent bristly hairs distally (versus glabrous or pilose). Pseudosasa japonica appears to be an "intergeneric hybrid involving Pleioblastus and Sasamorpha" (Triplett and Clark 2021).