The Flowering of Bamboo

Farmers don't say that bamboo flowers; instead, it "starts laughing" (Fukienese for "to go crazy"). No one says why it is that bamboo goes crazy; but all farmers understand that this "laughter" is infectious--and fatal. It seems now that Taiwan's bamboo may be "going crazy."

Who has seen bamboo flower? If you lived in ancient times and asked people this question, they would probably stand you in a corner and ask you to keep your mouth shut. At that time the flowering of bamboo was considered a bad omen, portending natural or man-made disasters, and since even mentioning such an event could cause it to happen, doing so could cost a person his life.

Is bamboo flowering really such a scary thing? Lu Chin-ming points out that since bamboo flowers so seldom but, once it does, immediately dies, it has naturally been viewed superstitiously as a bad omen.

In 1960, all the madake bamboo in Japan--over 300,000 hectares of it-- flowered and died, causing inestimable economic losses. A decade later, the madake "madness" hit the United States, and, likewise, bamboo from Florida to California flowered and died. As for doing something about the problem, even the experts' hands were tied. When a bamboo tree flowers, it dries and turns yellow, making it stand out in a verdant bamboo grove. Sometimes a solitary stalk flowers, sometimes it's a clump here, a clump there. And sometimes, what has struck fear in man for so long happens--a whole grove flowers at once. As one farmer describes it, "It looks like the whole forest is on fire."

The flowering and subsequent death of bamboo cause obvious economic losses. But what worries experts more is the effect on the ecosystem. A few years ago, National Geographic Magazine did a study on the extinction of giant pandas in the border regions of Szechuan province, and discovered that the 120 bears that had lived in this mountainous area had all died of starvation. Research revealed that the panda's main foodstuff was mountain arrow bamboo; during 1976 there was a massive flowering of this type of bamboo, leaving the pandas with almost nothing to eat.

Besides affecting bamboo-eating animals, bamboo expert Chiang T'ao points out, when bamboo flowers it drops seeds which in appearance and nutritional value are similar to rice and wheat. In India and Pakistan, the flowering of bamboo thus brings about a huge increase in the rat population. And where there are rats, there is bubonic plague. The extinction of groups of giant pandas and bubonic plague are two possible results of the massive flowering of bamboo. How does this massive flowering happen--what is bamboo's secret?

Some say bamboo flowers because it is undernourished or sick; but the most widely accepted theory is that it simply ages. "All plants grow, mature, and flower or bear fruit; that is nature's way," says Lu. "What is special about bamboo is that it doesn't flower until it's old." How old? According to available findings, long bamboo can live two or three hundred years, short bamboo 30 or 40. This is why someone may devote his whole life to studying bamboo without ever seeing a flowering, and why our understanding of bamboo is not as good as that of other plants.

Chiang T'ao explains that bamboo consists of two types--clump and running (solitary) bamboo. Both kinds have a very high speed of growth and very high procreative power. Clump bamboo is like a body, with each stalk forming a limb; hence each stalk, regardless of how old it really is, is the same "age" as the rest of the stalks in the clump. So when one stalk flowers, all of them do.

As for running bamboo, how is it that different stalks, or even whole groves, can all flower at once? "That has to do with the method of cultivating bamboo," explains Lu Chin-ming. "Because it is very difficult to grow bamboo from seeds, most bamboo is grown by cutting pieces off of a plant and planting them in the ground." As a result, even though the offspring lays down roots and sprouts leaves like a new plant, its age is the same as that of the mother plant. Therefore, "most of the bamboo on Taiwan is the same age--about 300 years old," continues Lu. "Some types, like Taiwan giant bamboo, moso bamboo, and green bamboo are, one by one, reaching their flowering age."

From its appearance bamboo may seem to be part of the tree family, but it is actually related to rice, wheat, and grass. "Bamboo is in its own family, related to rice, but since its stalk looks like a tree trunk, people think it belongs to the tree family," explains Sun Cheng-chun of the Forestry Research Institute's Lienhuach'ih branch. Grasses die after they flower, but trees can flower and bear fruit year after year. Hence bamboo's flowering and death is a natural and, as anyone who has seen groves of bamboo flowering and dropping their seeds in the rain or fog can attest, a beautiful event. So why should we worry about it?

The problem is that it takes about ten years for bamboo seeds to grow into usable bamboo. Compounding this problem is the farmers' practice of cutting down bamboo stalks when they start to flower before the seeds have formed. Mistaking sprouts for grass and uprooting them further reduces the number of sprouts that reach maturity.

On Taiwan, another problem is that the number of species of bamboo is quite small: probably no more than 20 according to Lu Chin-ming. Lacking proper care, the number of species will continually get smaller, and the gene pool will decrease. To help prevent this from happening, Lu is working to cultivate bamboo sprouts in order to create a new generation of bamboo, as well as to maintain a larger gene pool.

Last October, Lu set his hand at gathering bamboo seeds. "I didn't know it would be such hard work. You never know when the bamboo will start to flower; and even though they say a whole grove flowers at once, actually it happens area by area over a few days, so I have to spend a lot of time waiting."

Once collected, the seeds also prove troublesome. "Six out of ten seeds will dry up or go bad; or else they'll just be difficult and refuse to sprout." Nevertheless he has managed to collect hundreds of seeds; in addition, over 100 moso bamboo sprouts have been planted in the Lienhua area, as have five each of the Taiwan giant and the makino bamboo varieties in the Taipei botanical garden.

"Green bamboo is the biggest headache; as of yet we don't even have one seed," he says. The reason is that green bamboo doesn't bear fruit or pollinate easily. "If we don't come up with better cultivating methods," he warns, "green bamboo will be the first type on Taiwan to become extinct."

Can cultivating bamboo lengthen its lifespan? No one dares say for sure. What is important is initiating more in-depth studies and utilizing new techniques, such as artificial pollination, another storage, pollen gathering, and so forth. More in-depth studies of bamboo flowering will, naturally, lead to better methods of dealing with it in the future.

For people like Lu Chin-ming and Chiang T'ao, that will certainly be a turning point.

[Picture Caption]

Have you ever seen bamboo flower?

(Left above) "These are hard to get," says Lu Chin-ming, spreading out some of his "treasures."

(Left, below) Cultivated bamboo sprouts.

(Right) After flowering, a bamboo stalk stretches weakly towards heaven.

Bamboo shoots are one reason for bamboo's high economic value.

Academia Sinica's Institute of Botany uses tissue culturing to cultivate bamboo sprouts. This technique can make the sprouts younger and healthier.

（Left above） "These are hard to get," says Lu Chin-ming, spreading out some of his "treasures.".

（Left, below） Cultivated bamboo sprouts.

（Right） After flowering, a bamboo stalk stretches weakly towards heaven.

Academia Sinica's Institute of Botany uses tissue culturing to cultivate bamboo sprouts. This technique can make the sprouts younger and healthier.

Bamboo shoots are one reason for bamboo's high economic value.