Brockie: Mysterious bamboo flowers every 120 years, then dies
BOB BROCKIE
Last updated 05:00, April 9 2018
Cuttings of these Chinese bamboos were transplanted around the world, including New Zealand. In the 1960s, they flowered in sync on different continents and then died.
Botanists the world over are mystified by a Chinese bamboo that flowers at long intervals.
Historians report that the Giant Chinese Timber Bamboo produced a huge crop of flowers in the year 919. It bloomed again in 1114, again about 1725, and again about 1845.
Phyllostachys bambusoides​ flowers at 120-year intervals, with very few flowers or none in between. Flowering must super-stress the plants, for they die soon after.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/science/102841574/.html
