Many things might come to your mind when I say the word bamboo, whether it’s being in a spa, visualizing a panda bear eating it or the flooring in your house, you can’t deny the on-going versatility of this beautiful plant.

Bamboo species belong to the plant family Poaceae and is the fastest growing plant in the world. The plant family Poaceae is a grass family of flowering plants and much of the world relies on it as an important source of forest produce in rural communities of Asia and the Pacific. While many people around the world depend on different species of bamboo every day, people in the United States (and other Western countries) look at it as a pest. This huge misunderstanding started by the early introduction of many running or monopodial (invasive) bamboo species on our soil. This hurt the reputation for bamboos in many western countries. It left people thinking that it is impossible to grow any species of bamboo without it taking over their whole entire garden, but that is false! Out of the 1,500 species of bamboo, root systems are based off of their morphology of their rhizomes. There are 2 main types of rhizome development (root systems) which we will focus on that will determine if the plant will be invasive or non-invasive. One root system in bamboo plants is the sympodial or clumping system (non-invasive), this is when short, thick rhizomes branch off of each other, cur-

ving upwards, creating bamboo shoots.

 

  This creates clumps of bamboo with minimal spatial spread, more narrow at the base and wider towards the top. Clumping bamboo types are easier to control than running bamboo species. A fun fact about bamboo is that many will not grow in diameter after maintaining maximum height, but will continue to change in density and strength properties throughout its life.

The second main type of rhizome development belongs to all of the ‘running’ bamboo species, also known as the monopodial root system.

These bamboos are looked at as the ‘invasive’ types because the goal of running bamboo rhizomes is to create a bamboo forest. Shoots of these bamboos grow out of one main lateral (horizontal) rhizome and will travel far distances. With a bigger footprint than clumping bamboo types, running bamboos are useful for screens, hedges and aid in the restoration of cleared land by its fast growth in soils. While many people look at mon

opodial bamboo as invasive, it is native to many areas of the world and has unlimited uses. If a soil barrier is put down before planting these types of bamboo, they would not be invasive at all, given that their rhizome will not penetrate the barrier. There are some clumping species that are an invasive threat to an environment and some running species that will not threaten anything, this all depends on where you plan on planting this magnificent grass species. Bamboos have such a wide range of uses that we are still trying to find out! Catch me next time to learn more on the fastest growing plant in the world!

To learn more about the anatomy of bamboo check out this article (by clicking the ‘article’ link). It gives you in an in depth view of whats going on in these interesting organisms.