Those are species that don't grow well in my Zone, so I can't give you specific advice on what to plant. But I can tell you that, although bamboo flower infrequently (and unpredictably), when they do they die out after they flower and will not make a comeback. Therefore, you want to hedge your bets: plant a variety.

All of those grow very well here in my zone(8b), but as Kudzu stated, they may not do well in your area.

Malingensis and tuldoides both grow as open clumpers here. Tuldoides grows more upright, but mailingensis seems to have thicker foliage.

B. tex. gracilis grows as a tight clumper but the culms lean outwards somewhat, giving a vase shaped appearance to the clump.

All three varieties grow to over 40 feet here.

Kt

Thanks for the responses. I had never heard of bamboo flowering, very interesting. Any other types that ya'll would recommend that would do well in this area. BTW, we are about a 1/2 mile from the Gulf of Mexico so wind is an issue.

There is some small leaved clumping bamboo that grows at a rest area between Tivoli and Fulton on HWY 35 that looks really nice. It is not affected by the wind at all.

I don't think wind would bother larger clumpers either. You may want to look into some of the more colourful culmed clumpers...something with yellow culms and green stripes or maybe a blue culmed bamboo.

My biggest concern would be salt spray from an occasional hurricane, which would burn the leaves, but not necessarily kill the plant.

I know some people growing bamboo on Galveston Island and it has survived salt spray.

Kt

All bamboos are bothered by nagging dry or cold winds. While some can even be used to provide wind shelter themselves they will not look nearly as good as if planted in a quiet area.

And they can sound quite agitated when thrashing around in gales.

Of those listed, i would vote for Textilis Gracilis