17 Bamboos are important non-timber forest plants widely distributed in the tropical and 18 subtropical regions of Asia, Africa, America, and Pacific islands. They comprise the 19 Bambusoideae in the grass family (Poaceae), including approximately 1,700 described 20 species in 127 genera. In spite of the widespread uses of bamboo for food, construction 21 and bioenergy, the gene repertoire of bamboo still remains largely unexplored. Raddia 22 distichophylla (Schrad. ex Nees) Chase, belonging to the tribe Olyreae (Bambusoideae, 23 Poaceae), is diploid herbaceous bamboo with only slightly lignified stems. In this study, 24 we report a draft genome assembly of the approximately ~589 Mb whole-genome 25 sequence of R. distichophylla with a contig N50 length of 86.36 Kb. Repeated sequences 26 account for ~49.08% of the genome, of which LTR retrotransposons occupy ~35.99% of 27 whole genome. A total of 30,763 protein-coding genes were annotated in the R. 28 distichophylla genome with an average transcript size of 2,887 bp. Access to this 29 herbaceous bamboo genome sequence will provide novel insights into biochemistry, 30 molecular-assisted breeding programs and germplasm conservation for bamboo species 31 world-wide. 32 33 KEYWORDS 34 Bamboos, Raddia distichophylla, whole-genome sequence 35 36 37 65 Clark et al., 2015). Herbaceous bamboos are characterized by usually weakly developed 66 rhizomes and less lignification in the culms. Culm leaves and foliage leaves with the 67