Abstract: By using various numerical techniques such as principal components analysis(PCA) clustering, distance clustering, and adop ting different combinatorial strategies such as nearest-neighbour, furthest-neighbour, median, centroid and group-average etc., the authors have classified 20 sample plots of bamboo community in 3 areas of southern Yunnan, China. It is indicated that the result of PCA ordination in two-dimensional space and group-average distance clustering is identical with the traditional classification approaches.