In message , johngood_____
writes
dont know what type of bamboo it is, but it has small thin leaves is quite
common around the london area, and it has the characteristic of folding its
leaves up very small and very quickly the moment the soil gets at all dry.

my specimens have just flowered and i've just been told that it will now
die. where is the logic in that? does that mean every speciment of this
type will die? i had about five plants in pots in front garden and back
garden and they have all died at the same time.
Funnily enough about two of them still have some very tiny leaves about 20
leaves all told that are still green.

should i hang on to see if they revive or just dispose of them now, which i
would prefer to do if there is no chance of revival for them, since i could
do with the extra room that they now occupy.

thanks for any advice.


Many plants flower once and then die, including annuals and biennials.
There are a number of perennial plants which are either monocarpic or
have a tendency to monocarpy. Bamboos as a group are well known for
being monocarpic, though I don't know whether this applies to all
species. There is a trade off between producing more seeds, and saving
enough resources to live another year. In the case of bamboos, with
synchronised monocarpy, the advantage of producing more seeds is that
there's too many seeds for seed eating animals to consume, so there's an
improved chance of a seed germinating. Any bamboo plant which "defects"
produces fewer seeds and has less chance of contributing to the next
generation - any compensating seed production that it produces by
flowering in a subsequent year is liable to be eaten, and therefore fail
to actually compensate in terms of contribution to the next generation.

A quick google finds citations that not all bamboos display this
gregarious monocarpy. Unfortunately you need to ascertain which bamboo
you have, and whether it displays this trait.
--
Stewart Robert Hinsley