Re: bamboo
Barbara Sargent wrote:
>
> >Sorry, Barbara I must have deleted your original note on this
> >but I just remembered reading in the paper a month ago, or so,
> >that most of the existing bamboo is going to flower and die soon
> >(seems like within the next few years -did anyone else see this? it was
> >in the Santa Cruz Sentinal...)
> >-could this possibly take care of your problem?
> >
> >Maura O'Neill,
>
> Wow, I don't know but I hope so! Could that mean all varieties of bamboo,
> and everywhere on earth, or just some? Well--if everyone who wants bamboo
> could then plant black bamboo or other clumping varieties which hardly
> spread that would certainly solve the invasion problem.
>
Barbara
By no means every kind of bamboo is involved. As far as I know the
phenomenon of flowering once and then dying is confined to some Chinese
and Japanese varieties which live a long time (more than 100 years I
believe) and then, because they were all children from the same seed
crop (how ever many times we may have divided the original plants) they
all reach maturity together, flower, seed and die. The species is then
carried on by the new seedlings. Of course, because one species is
geared to reach maturity in a certain year, it doesn't follow that other
monocarpic bamboo species are flowering to the the same timetable.
Whether your species is the one about to immolate itself I cannot say.
Many other plants are equally monocarpic (flower only once and then die)
but no other has such a spectacularly long time of vegetative growth
first.
What I understand is a serious cause for worry is that the main
(possibly only) species of bamboo which is eaten by wild Pandas is one
of this type and is around it crunch time, which might leave these
already much threatened beasts in a very precarious position. It seems
the Chinese authorities have been concerned for some time, but whether
they have come up with a practical answer I don't know.
Moira
--
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata,
New Zealand (astride the "Ring of Fire" in the SW Pacific).
