Spatial and temporal flowering patterns of the monocarpic dwarf bamboo Sasa veitchii var. hirsuta

Abstract

In order to clarify spatial and temporal patterns in the flowering process of S. veitchii var. hirsuta, the authors investigated the flowering of the species at a regional level in a mountainous area of Kyoto City, and at population/individual culm levels at experimental forest stations within the same municipal region. S. veitchii var. hirsuta flowered in several separate areas spanning ranges between several and more than 10 km north–south and east–west from 2004 to 2007. Sporadic flowering occurred the year before mass flowering. In the mass‐flowering year, 98% of the culms in an S. veitchii var. hirsuta population flowered, and the other 2% or so flowered in the years before and after mass flowering. These results show a spatiotemporal synchronous flowering pattern (with most culms of populations gregariously flowering in a year over a large area) and an asynchronous flowering pattern (with a small percentage of the culms of populations flowering before and after the mass‐flowering year) for S. veitchii var. hirsuta. It was also clarified that the year and scale of mass flowering differ by area, and that mass flowering occurs in individual areas in successive years. The survey performed at the individual culm level revealed that the mean numbers of open florets and attached seeds per culm showed two peaks from April to July, suggesting that S. veitchii var. hirsuta flowering events occur twice a year.

Distribution and synchronized massive flowering of Sasa borealis in the forests of Korean National Parks

“…S. veitchii var. hirsute showed sporadic flowering before and after mass flowering (Abe and Shibata 2012). It could be caused by the fact that one patch has been composed of multiple genets so that it had more than one flowering schedule, like the Bambusa arnhemica (Kaneko et al 2008).…”

The Bamboo Flowering Cycle Sheds Light on Flowering Diversity

“…This phenomenon is called the "bamboo flowering distribution". Synchronous flowering refers to a flowering distribution in which the vast majority of clumps within a patch initiate flowering in a given year, with most of the remaining flowering the year before or after (Abe and Shibata, 2012). Suyama et al (2010) proposed that sporadic flowering may occur as a result of mechanistic malfunction, and result in massive flowering, therefore this should be regarded as part of the normal massive-flowering schedule.…”

“…When part of a population is subjected to such an increment, and that part is sufficiently aggregated in time and space to maintain the viability derived from synchronicity, an offset (patch) is established that will be maintained across generations. Flowering waves are always temporally organized but are not necessarily spatially organized (Franklin, 2010;Abe and Shibata, 2012). This phenomenon represents the interaction of endogenous and exogenous factors.…”

Delayed Flowering in Bamboo: Evidence from Fargesia qinlingensis in the Qinling Mountains of China

“…Many bamboo species are semelparous, having an unusual life history including a long clonal growth phase (sometimes over 100 years), followed by mass synchronous flowering and subsequent death ( Janzen , 1976 ; Tian, 1987 ; Qin et al, 1989 ; Taylor et al, 1991 ). The long inter-mast period has hindered documentation of stand changes ( Widmer, 1998 ; Marchesini et al, 2009 ; Abe and Shibata, 2012 ; Austin and Marchesini, 2012 ) and a thorough understanding of bamboo regeneration mechanisms and patterns, because flowering events are relatively rare (but see Kakishima et al, 2011 and de Carvalho et al, 2013 ). Thus, the evolutionary selection for such long vegetative phases, and semelparity, in bamboos is still debated ( Keeley and Bond, 1999 ; Saha and Howe, 2001 ; Franklin, 2004 ; Iler and Inouye, 2013 ).…”