If most all bamboo is cloned, and it seeds....

[Streetman_Buddy]

Kentuck's Bambusa textilis 'Albostriata' got me to thinking. If in fact it was a clone, and all Albostriatas then begin to seed, all over, we end up with, or could, a new plant.
Herein lies my question.
Mother nature being the great builder she is, does away with certain unfavorable things to make way for better things. Using that as a guide, she would be improving on the plant!
I have no idea where this single plant is, but it would seem to me, if the seeds were viable, and grown, it would be better suited to it's current conditions. Correct?
Well what if it's Japan or Mexico?
I know I bought a atrovaginata from much further north than we live.
Everything we have is shooting but this guy. It was planted in June, and well fed and watered. Conditioned to cooler climates?
Needmore?
Do you end up with many new types, or babies that are all the same?
Bud

[needmore]

I'll claim ignorance on the aspects of seed traits, it is my understanding though that when a cultivar or sport of a form produces seed it often reverts back to the species traits, with those few .0000001 new cultivar exceptions.

For example my Pl. fortunei seedlings are all solid green thus far, none of the variegation present on the parent stock, and the all green form is not really known in the US (until now) but I believe is in Europe.

Atrovaginata is usually my very last species to shoot here, often in late May so what you are seeing sounds normal to me with the exception that as a youngster it did shoot somewhat earlier.

[ghmerrill]

I had heard the same about seedlings reverting to type form. John are you talking about natural selection, where a particular trait will allow the plant to thrive in an area where the parent plant barely made it? I think that those kinds of traits, whether it is a trait for the plant to be super cold hardy, or a different color, or whatever, first has to be possible within the genetic code of the plant, and second, a particular seed has to have that particular genetic code, sprout, grow, and survive for it to become apparent. Out of millions of seeds, maybe one will be able to produce a plant that is hardier than the parent stock, etc. then you would have to wait for that plant to mature, flower, and the subsequent seedlings to grow to get one that went the next level.

That is my understanding anyway...... Im sure there are examples out there- P. nigra is probably one of them, with its myriad of forms- Daikokuchiku, Othello, etc. I think that doing genetic mapping of each cultivar is about the only way to be certain that what you see as a "trait" is actualy present... for example if I try to grow a Himalayacalamas species, and it dies from the cold, and someone down the road tries the same, and it survives, is thiers a different genetic stock? possibly. Could there be a difference in environment that allowed thier plant to live? Probalby more likely.

Gene

See what I am getting at?

[foxd]

ghmerrill, I think that there is a lot of genetic potential in the bamboo genome, which is one of the reasons I would like to see more experimentation with growing it from seed.

I strongly suspect there is a Chusquea culeou seedling out there that can survive in the Indiana climate. But unless it is given a chance to try and grow in Indiana we will never know which one it is.

As a related side note, I noticed last night that one of the P. heteroclada seedlings has put up a shoot with a white leaf.

[ghmerrill]

I agree with the idea of needing more seed expirements.... the problem is how many plants can we get reliable seed on? It amazes me every time I go on ebay, how many varieties of seed for bamboo are available. leads me to wonder if we really are off the mark on how rare the flowering cycle is- sporatic flowering seems more usual, the mass flowering events may be very rare indeed. also, how many of those sellers are actualy selling corectly ID'd bamboo seed.... and who is to know, if so many are hard to grow?

[Roy]

I'll claim ignorance on the aspects of seed traits, it is my understanding though that when a cultivar or sport of a form produces seed it often reverts back to the species traits, with those few .0000001 new cultivar exceptions.

For example my Pl. fortunei seedlings are all solid green thus far, none of the variegation present on the parent stock, and the all green form is not really known in the US (until now) but I believe is in Europe.

Atrovaginata is usually my very last species to shoot here, often in late May so what you are seeing sounds normal to me with the exception that as a youngster it did shoot somewhat earlier.

Out of my B.m. "A.Karr" smoke/fire experiment seedlings, I have not found any seedlings that look like the parent plant. Almost all the seedlings are Bambusa multiplex--green culms and leaves. I have a few with striped leaves, but there already is a B.m. "Silverstripe" that has that trait. I keep looking for something special, but so far I'm not ready to say I've found something unusual that is worth mentioning.

[Roy]

I agree with the idea of needing more seed expirements.... the problem is how many plants can we get reliable seed on? It amazes me every time I go on ebay, how many varieties of seed for bamboo are available. leads me to wonder if we really are off the mark on how rare the flowering cycle is- sporatic flowering seems more usual, the mass flowering events may be very rare indeed. also, how many of those sellers are actualy selling corectly ID'd bamboo seed.... and who is to know, if so many are hard to grow?

What doesn't amaze me is how many of these seeds turn out to be D. strictus and not the rare variety the seller presented the seeds as.

This is my 30th year of working with bamboo and I've only had 2 plants to flower and produce seed and both of those were stress related flowerings.

[ghmerrill]

I agree with the idea of needing more seed expirements.... the problem is how many plants can we get reliable seed on? It amazes me every time I go on ebay, how many varieties of seed for bamboo are available. leads me to wonder if we really are off the mark on how rare the flowering cycle is- sporatic flowering seems more usual, the mass flowering events may be very rare indeed. also, how many of those sellers are actualy selling corectly ID'd bamboo seed.... and who is to know, if so many are hard to grow?

Yep.

Roy, your way of quoting is much easier!

[Roy]

?

Yep.

Roy, your way of quoting is much easier!
[/quote]

The best I think I've seen at picking out just the essence of a quote that he wants to reply to and then doing so is Kinder Chambers. He doesn't post much on this forum, but on other forums I see his posts.

[mike best]

Roy forgive me if you already answered this one, but how about your millenia seedlings, (is that Bambusa
tuldoides?) Are they old enough yet to see if there are differences from the parent plant?

[Roy]

Roy forgive me if you already answered this one, but how about your millenia seedlings, (is that Bambusa
tuldoides?) Are they old enough yet to see if there are differences from the parent plant?

That's my 2001 B. tuldoides seedlings. The biggest ones I have about thumb sized culms and about 15 feet tall. I've haven't noticed any real difference between them and the parent plant (remembering that these are still seedlings that haven't matured yet).

The do have the "bat eared" auricles of B. tuldoides: