CrimePaysButBotanyDoesnt

Neotropical Bamboos : Biogeography & Gregarious Monocarpy

Added 2025-03-18 16:58:16 +0000 UTC

Dr. Lynn Clark studies neotropical bamboos - bamboos from the Americas - specifically the genus Chusquea, which is epically diverse in South America, from the Atlantic Forest of Brazil to the mountains of Peru and Bolivia, to Western Mexico, all the way down to the temperate rainforests of Southern Chile. In this episode we talk about Chusquea, how its monocarpic (it flowers once and then dies, like Agave), how it can take decades for a clonal stand of Chusquea to flower, what the hell "gregarious monocarpy" is, how a stand of individuals "know" when to all flower at the same time, and more.

We also talk about the enormous bamboo species Guadua angustifolia, which can reach heights of 30 meters (90 feet), forms massive stands in the upper Amazon, and creates its own canopy ecosytem much like a redwood tree does.

Later in the podcast we discuss the 4 species of bamboo native to the United States, the genus Arundinaria , and how a dispersal event from Asia 25 million years ago may have originally introduced bamboos to the Americas.