Bamboo is the fastest growing plant on Earth. A typical bamboo grows as much as 10 centimeters in one single day. Certain species grow up to a meter per day, or about 1 millimeter every 2 minutes. You can actually see the plant grow right in front of your eyes. In just 5 to 8 years, most varieties of bamboo reach maturity. Compare this to other popular plants that only grow an inch per week. Trees such as oak reach maturity in 120 years.
But when it comes to flowering, bamboo is probably one of the slowest plants in the world. Let's find out about the phenomenon of flowering anyway ...
Bamboo flowering is an intriguing phenomenon because it is a unique and very rare phenomenon in the plant kingdom. Most bamboo stems bloom once every 60 to 130 years. The long flowering intervals remain a mystery to most botanists.
These slow-blooming varieties show another oddity in their behavior - the stems produced from the same sprout bloom simultaneously all over the world, regardless of geographic location and climate. Most bamboo is 'subdivision' from a single parent shoot. These divisions have been re-divided over time and spread throughout the world. And although they are now geographically in different locations, they still have the same organization of genetic material. Thus, when bamboo blooms in North America, the same stem in Asia will bloom at about the same time. It looks like plants have an internal clock where the alarm goes off at the same time. This mass flowering phenomenon is called communicated flowering.
According to one hypothesis, mass flowering increases the survival rate of the bamboo population. As soon as the bamboo variety has reached its maximum lifespan, bloomed and produced seeds, the plant dies, and entire forests are erased from the face of the Earth. One theory is that it takes a huge amount of energy to produce a seed, exhausting the bamboo to the point where it actually dies. Another theory suggests that the mother bamboo dies to make room for the bamboo seedlings.
The mass flowering of bamboo attracts predators, mainly rodents. The sudden availability of fruit in vast quantities draws tens of millions of hungry rats into the forest, which feed, grow, and multiply at alarming rates. After they eat the bamboo fruits, the rats start consuming the crops in the neighboring areas. The flowering of bamboo is almost always accompanied by famine and disease in neighboring villages. In the northeast Indian state of Mizoram, a terrible event occurs regularly every 48 to 50 years when the bamboo species of Melocanna baccifera begin to bloom. Such a phenomenon last occurred in 2006-2008, in the local language it was called mautam, or "bamboo death".
Interesting about bamboo:
On the western outskirts of the Japanese city of Kyoto is the popular tourist area of Arashiyama. During the Heian Period (794-1185), this place was popular with the local nobles, who liked to come here to relax and enjoy the natural scenery. The cherry blossom season was especially popular.
The famous Sagano Bamboo Forest is located in the same area.
The forest covers an area of 16 square kilometers. A footpath is laid through its dense thickets, the fences of which are woven from fallen bamboo trunks. On a sunny day, when the rays break through the green thicket and the light wind walking in the grove fills the air with amazing sounds, you understand what an amazing place you are.
Bamboo from this forest is still used for the production of various products: dishes, boxes, baskets, mats.
The sound of the wind in Sagano has been recognized by the Japanese government as one of the "hundred sounds of Japan that must be preserved."
The whole area is literally permeated with narrow paths and cozy alleys leading to many ancient temples through numerous bamboo groves and squares.
Right next to the trail are temples and residences - some Kyoto residents are lucky enough to live close to such beauty.
Bamboo is a gigantic tree-like cereal, the tallest grass on the globe, whose relatives are wheat, rye, corn and other representatives of the cereal family known to us. In addition, bamboo today is the fastest growing flowering plant, adding from 70 to 100 centimeters or more per day. Bamboos in Vietnam grow up to two meters per day.
The fact that giant bamboo groves are actually thickets of grass, such meadows of giants, is probably known to almost everyone. But bamboo has many strange properties that science has little studied. Bamboo belongs to the family of cereals, and thus is simply a grass, and this grass can grow up to 40 meters, reaching a girth of 80 centimeters. Bamboo is widespread in all countries of Asia and in both Americas, and where its homeland is unknown.
Wherever it grows, bamboo is extremely valued and used in many industries - both in construction and for the manufacture of furniture and decorative products. But perhaps the most reverent attitude to bamboo in Japan. Along with the more famous sakura and pine, bamboo is a symbol of happiness and purity for the Japanese.
Can you hear the plants grow? Most of the inhabitants of the Earth will answer this question in the negative. But residents of countries with a hot climate, especially Southeast Asia and the Malay Archipelago, will answer that bamboo growth can be heard. The appearance of shoots on the surface of the soil is accompanied by a kind of dull noise, and sometimes crackling. At the beginning of growth, the bamboo stalk grows by more than 1 millimeter per minute. But there are 1440 minutes in a day! What allows bamboo to achieve such a truly cosmic growth rate?
Bundles of pine and bamboo branches in Japan decorate the entrance to homes before the New Year to bring good luck and happiness to the house. Bamboo is considered almost animated in Japan: there is a belief that a young, extremely thin and fragile beauty lives in a thin empty bamboo stem, and if you cut the stem, she will come out. And in the Andaman Islands, it is believed that all mankind appeared, coming into the light from the internodes of bamboo stalks. Take a closer look at its stem, and you will see that it resembles the well-known stem of cereal plants, consisting of thickened nodes in which leaves and internodes are attached.
Bamboo is not only the tallest grass, but also the fastest growing. In the same Japan, watching the growth of bamboo, they set a record - a madake bamboo stem grew by 120 centimeters per day! This means that it grew every hour by 5 centimeters. And, the Japanese assure, if you look at the bamboo during its growth, you can see how it grows with your own eyes. Carefully separate the leaf from the young stem of any cereal and you will see that under the protection of the leaf sheath there is a tender, juicy, sweetish area of the so-called intercalated (intercalary) educational tissue, due to which the stem grows in height. Count the number of nodes. It is in them that the growth of the stem is carried out.
Absolutely mysterious flowering of bamboo. This huge grass blooms once in 25 - 30 years, and some species - even once in a hundred years. Bamboo stems can be of various thicknesses - from 1 to 30 centimeters or more. An interesting fact is that the size of the stem of a future bamboo plant can be determined even before it germinates. To do this, it is enough to rake the ground and, having found a growth bud laid on the rhizome, measure its diameter. The maximum diameter of the kidney will be equal to the maximum thickness of the stem. If the bud is cut lengthwise, then it can be noted that it, like in a telescopic antenna, contains all the nodes of the future stem. The length of the stem will depend on the conditions under which the bud develops. Under favorable conditions, the growth of internodes is fast, and the stem is able to stretch 2 meters per day, under unfavorable conditions, growth slows down. The most rapidly growing is the lowest internodes of bamboo stems.
Among the local population, flowering of bamboo is almost universally considered a bad sign. It is considered a harbinger of either hunger or diseases that rats that have eaten on bamboo fruits can carry. It is not known whether these prophecies come true, but one sad event really awaits these lands - the death of bamboo groves. It is said that in the countries of Southeast Asia this type of execution of especially dangerous criminals was adopted in ancient times. Over areas of bamboo rhizomes, where a large number of buds were located, or over pre-sown seeds ready for germination, the criminal was tied. The rapidly growing stems of bamboo after a while pierced his entire body, like spears, with their growing stems, after which a painful death followed. Looking ahead, let's say that bamboo stems are able to grow through fairly thick layers of asphalt and concrete.
Flowering completes the life span of bamboo, the plant spends too much energy on it, and when it fades, it dies. Moreover, bamboo stalks seem to have an incomprehensible ability to communicate with each other. Bamboos is a collective name for more than 75 (100) genera and 600 species of plants similar in external structure. Their essential feature is the structure of the leaf, along with a linear or narrow oval plate, the leaf in the lower part does not form a sheath, covering the stem, as in most cereals, but passes into a short petiole. In addition, the bamboo stem is able to branch. These plants are not only inhabitants of tropical regions, there are bamboos that also grow here on Sakhalin Island. Among bamboos, climbing and climbing forms are known.
Because if bamboo blooms, then, as if by agreement, the whole grove blooms, no matter how big it is, or even several groves nearby. Bamboo growth is limited. Most of them grow within 30-45 days, and the growth of the stems goes on continuously throughout the day, while in most trees the shoots grow for about 1 month a year at an average rate of 0.6 mm per day.
Therefore, flowering sometimes causes the death of bamboo over a large area. So, for example, it happened once in Europe, where bamboo was grown. The stems of certain types of bamboo in such a short period of growth reach a height of 30, sometimes 46 meters, the diameter of the stem is 25-30 centimeters. There is evidence that the length of the stem of a bamboo growing on the island of Java reaches 51 meters.
And in China, the flowering and death of bamboo caused the giant panda, which eats only bamboo, to die of starvation. Occasionally, tall grass plantations can recover from flowering from strong roots in the same spot, but this takes several years. The wood of the stem is initially relatively soft, after 2-3 years it matures, acquiring extraordinary strength, at the end of the 3rd year it is usually cut off, leaving younger shoots to ripen. Every year, from 9 to 45 thousand stems weighing from 10 to 38 tons are cut from 1 hectare of plantations.
Due to the fact that bamboo blooms so rarely, little is known about its flowering. It remains unclear what caused such a periodicity, why bamboo has such a slow life cycle. Maturity, that is, the ability to bloom and bear fruit, some types of bamboo reach in 28-60 years. Then the bamboo begins to branch, form a crown of lanceolate leaves and bloom. Flowering and fruiting usually last 2-3 seasons, and sometimes 9 years. At this time, a huge amount of nutrients stored in the rhizomes is completely wasted, and the plant dies. Botanists call such plants monocarpics - flowering and fruiting once in a lifetime, after which they die. Flowering periods vary between species of bamboo, but the most established are cycles of 33, 66 and 120 years. Strictly through these periods, bamboo dies, developing huge flowering shoots instead of the usual ones.
