CRC Handbook of Flowering - Volume II

Abstract

Of the seven grass (Gramineae, Poaceae) subfamilies, bamboo (Bambusoideae) is the most distinctive. 6 Members of this subfamily range from small herbaceous, perennial, tropical humid forest broad-leaved grasses (e.g., Sucrea7 •M) to enormous perennial woody bamboos with stems (culms) to 30 m in height (e.g., Dendrocalamlls. Phyllostachys4.6). One of these large plants may occupy several hundred square meters with a nearly impenetrable thicket of. stems. The small forest grass bamboos are of great interest in understanding the evolution of bamboos as they are thought to represent the ancestral types,M but have unexceptional flowering behavior in that they flower annually as do most nonbambusoid grasses. On the other hand, the large bamboos have long attracted both curiosity and economic concern because of their peculiar behavior of flowering and then dying synchronously at long supraannual intervals.