Re: blooming bamboo
- Subject: Re: blooming bamboo
- From: "Marge Talt" m*@hort.net
- Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 05:10:36 -0400
I just read a short article in 'Grandiflora - Mid-Atlantic Gardening'
magazine by Christopher DeRosa, president of the New England Bamboo
Co. in Rockport, MA concerning this.
He said that Fargesia nitida is currently flowering and will flower
in the US in the next 5 years. Flowering cycles can vary
dramatically, depending on species, from a few years to 100 years or
more. He said the widely held perception that flowering results in
the demise of the plant is untrue. Regeneration occurs by seedling
development or the emergence of non-flowering new shoots the second
year after flowering (my take on this is that the current stand of
culms die out, but the plant does not die as the roots live on).
He also said that the genetic makeup of all Fargesia nitida is
identical. All come from seed collected in the south Gansu Province
in China by a Russian expedition in 1885, which resulted in the 2
major cultivars: F. nitida and F. murielae, which flowered 10 years
ago.
He goes on to say that plants produced by this seed have all flowered
approx. 100 years later and the next flowering will be in about 100
years - the year 2100.
Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@hort.net
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