LiveScience.com, NY
03-27-07
Bamboo Family
In the hills of the Appalachia, scientists spotted a new species of bamboo called
hill cane. Dubbed Arundinaria appalachiana, the plant differs from the other two
native North American bamboo species in that it drops its leaves in the fall.
"That's why it was recognized locally as being different," said one of the
discoverers Lynn Clark, an ecologist and bamboo expert at Iowa State
University. "It's pretty uncommon for bamboos to drop their leaves."
Clark, her Ph.D. student JimmyTriplett and Alan Weakley of the University of
North Carolina recently completed the intricate process of officially naming and
describing the newbie. Following rules laid out in the International Code of
Botanical Nomenclature, they prepared a written description of the plant in both
Latin and English, and provided drawings and other information to make a strong
case for the recognition of A. appalachiana as a distinct bamboo species. They
submitted the information as a manuscript to the scientific journal Sida,
Contributions to Botany, where it was published last fall.
Of the 1,400 known species of bamboo, about 900 are tropical and 500 are
temperate. The bamboos of North America are found in the Eastern and
Southeastern United States, from New Jersey south to Florida and west to
Texas.
By cataloguing the global bamboo species, Clark hopes to craft a family tree of
sorts. "We want to get the big picture of how all the temperate bamboos are
related to each other. That means taking inventory of what exists, then
comparing notes," Clark said.