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Reports from multiple places in Japan that several species of bamboo have been found blossoming since late last year. From Japan-Forward:
While some species of bamboo produce blossoms as often as once every three years, many of them flower at extremely long intervals, between 40 to 80 years. In the case of madake 真竹 Phyllostachys bambusoides, pictured at the top of this article, they only flower once every 130 years!
Perhaps even more surprising than the long intervals at which they flower is the fact that all plants of the same stock of bamboo will bloom at the same time, and then die, no matter where they are in the world.
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2019 may turn out to be one of those years where major groupings of bamboo stock populations wither and die.Reports of bamboo blossoms from central to southern Japan have been coming in:
I had never heard of bamboo blossoming before, assuming that it only spread through new shoots running underground. As always, Wikipedia has more info.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday May 23 2019, @01:59AM
I planted some about 14 years ago, within 6 years it grew to a beautiful stand of 30' tall 2" diameter stems, I was starting to harvest the ones that were growing "out of bounds" for raw material - still have some curtain rods made from them. Then, 6 years ago we moved, and immediately planted a selection of 6 Phyllostachys species at the new house, 5 in one area and one in another. Of the five, one withered to nothing within 3 years, the smallest growing species is thriving, but no more than 6' tall, and the other 3 are barely 12" tall and only put up one or two new shoots a year. The one planted in another area (more direct sun, particularly since a massive oak tree got taken down by a tornado), has absolutely exploded, hundreds of shoots, topping 25' tall this year and approaching 1.5" diameter.
No signs of flowering on any of them, yet. If my big stand goes, I shall be depressed.
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