Bamboo: The Botanical Drama Queen

Introduction

Hamlet giving his final big speech. Javert’s final ballad. John Proctor’s final confession. The dramatic deaths of the theatre world could not be more iconic; main characters bursting into songs or speeches in the last moments before their death.

Dubbed “the drama queens of the plant world” by Hannah Fry, bamboo ‘exit scenes’ are a much lesser known (but still fabulous) phenomenon. Commanding attention before undergoing a truly theatrical death.

Details

Bamboo (subfamily Bambusoideae) consists of over 88 genera and 1,642 species worldwide, and experiences 3 types of flowering:

Continuous flowering occurs in most herbaceous bamboos – species continue to flower year after year, producing seeds that are rarely viable.

Sporadic flowering is likely induced by environmental factors, and occurs on individual stems (culms) of the same bamboo clump in a forest.

However, most woody bamboo species will remain in a vegetative state for years, before undergoing a phenomenon called gregarious flowering. In perfect synchrony, bamboo plants will burst into flowers at the exact same time, then die immediately after. Divas.

These bamboo species are known as semelparous, meaning they undergo a single reproductive episode before death. Bamboo forests can die off entirely – quickly transformed into open landscape. Since each forest has culms (woody stems) in various different stages of development – and mature culms produce seeds first— the forest can take 3-7 years to die off completely.

The length of their flowering intervals varies. The ringal bamboo Drepanostachyum falcatum flowers every 25 years, while Phyllostachys bambusoides has flowering intervals of up to 130 years!!

Incredibly, gregarious flowering isn’t limited to geographical location. Members of the same bamboo species/clone will flower at almost the exact same time, all over the world, regardless of where they are!

But how….?

You may ask “how can they do this?”, and you wouldn’t be alone. The mystery of synchronous/gregarious flowering is not completely understood in the scientific community, and the rarity of flowering events means very few studies have ever been conducted.

Here’s what we do know:

The eventual die-off of a bamboo forest typically goes through 3 phases…

1.       Small areas of sporadic flowering

2.       Massive synchronised flowering

3.       Small areas of sporadic flowering.

….almost like a sandwich. Massive synchronised flowering takes place when the vast majority of patches in a bamboo forest flower within a particular year.

Gregarious flowering occurs as these patches gradually accumulate – which has been described as a “flowering wave”.

In general, bamboo plants all seem to maintain some sort of ‘endogenous alarm clock’ (endogenous meaning biological or genetic), which signals the plant to direct all its energy into producing fruit/flowers and overrides any environmental cues. In cases of extreme selection pressures/inter-year climactic variability, this clock can be altered – sometimes creating an off-set patch.

This energy exhaustion is the main reason for the parent plant’s subsequent die-off. By diverting all its resources to fruiting and flowering, it is able to maximise its reproductive success.

However, these ‘biological melodramatics’ pose a few problems. In countries (such as China) where bamboo has economic importance, mass die-offs reduce local income. In north-east India, the sudden abundance of seeds causes a drastic increase in rodent numbers – carrying disease, creating food shortages, and posing health risks to surrounding communities.

It also creates issues for the plants themselves. Because of their synchronised reproductive windows, bamboo species are vulnerable to extinction if the seedlings are disturbed – either by predators or human interference.

Why?

There are so many downsides, it poses the question; “what advantage does this have for bamboo plants?”. There are two main theories:

Firstly, why the synchronicity? These lengthy flowering intervals prevent the build-up of specialised seed predators, since they don’t have continuous access to bamboo seeds as a food source. This strategy is known as mast seeding – meaning that, when seeds do occur, the quantity overwhelms potential predators and allows some seeds to establish the next generation.

Secondly, why the mass death? Aside from resource exhaustion, another theory suggests that the parent plant’s die-off creates the perfect environment for its seedlings to survive – reducing competition for sunlight and nutrients.

Conclusion:

While bamboo gregarious flowering still remains shrouded in mystery, it does seem to hold advantages for survival and reproduction. Full of botanical theatrics, it is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful and intriguing phenomenons of the natural world.

Works Cited

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