Clumper Semiarundinaria Fastuosa goes for a run
 

I took some pictures in the Cambridge Botanical Gardens of a new stand of SemiArundinaria Fastuosa approximately 8 feet away
from the mother clump.

Pictures at http://www.rhodamine.eu/~richard/dia...20090821a.html

The plant has been there for at least 20 years and this is the first time I've seen this occur.

It isn't a clumper. To use the proper terms, there is absolutely no doubt that Semiarundinaria is leptomorphic, not pachymorphic. A large number of bamboo sellers in Britain say that plants from genuses such as Phyllostachys are "clumpers", because the conditions in Britain mean that these species are not as rampant as in places with conditions more suited. But grow them in Cornwall and things might be rather different. For example P. aurea is usually very well behaved in the average British garden, but it is a rampant noxious weed that has taken over entire hillsides in the Azores.

At least one seller in Britain markets S. fastuosa as an ideal hedging bamboo precisely because it is a runner, and precisely because if you contain it on two sides it tends to run off in a straight line in the uncontained directions.

In botanic gardens, it is common for the bamboos to be well contained with underground rhizome barriers. Perhaps this one has managed to escape its containment.

Clumper Semiarundinaria Fastuosa goes for a run
 

echinosum wrote:
richard;863467 Wrote:

I took some pictures in the Cambridge Botanical Gardens of a new stand
of SemiArundinaria Fastuosa approximately 8 feet away
from the mother clump.

Pictures at http://tinyurl.com/nknfgq

The plant has been there for at least 20 years and this is the first
time I've seen this occur.

It isn't a clumper. To use the proper terms, there is absolutely no
doubt that Semiarundinaria is leptomorphic, not pachymorphic. A large
number of bamboo sellers in Britain say that plants from genuses such
as Phyllostachys are "clumpers", because the conditions in Britain mean
that these species are not as rampant as in places with conditions more
suited. But grow them in Cornwall and things might be rather different.
For example P. aurea is usually very well behaved in the average British
garden, but it is a rampant noxious weed that has taken over entire
hillsides in the Azores.

At least one seller in Britain markets S. fastuosa as an ideal hedging
bamboo precisely because it is a runner, and precisely because if you
contain it on two sides it tends to run off in a straight line in the
uncontained directions.

In botanic gardens, it is common for the bamboos to be well contained
with underground rhizome barriers. Perhaps this one has managed to
escape its containment.





I stand corrected, though many describe it's habit as being clumping - leading to my error.

I found an interesting e-book at www.seedgarden.co.uk/ebooks/bambooebook.pdf

Clumper Semiarundinaria Fastuosa goes for a run
 

richard wrote:
echinosum wrote:

richard;863467 Wrote:

I took some pictures in the Cambridge Botanical Gardens of a new stand
of SemiArundinaria Fastuosa approximately 8 feet away from the mother
clump.

Pictures at http://tinyurl.com/nknfgq

The plant has been there for at least 20 years and this is the first
time I've seen this occur.


It isn't a clumper. To use the proper terms, there is absolutely no
doubt that Semiarundinaria is leptomorphic, not pachymorphic. A large
number of bamboo sellers in Britain say that plants from genuses such
as Phyllostachys are "clumpers", because the conditions in Britain mean
that these species are not as rampant as in places with conditions more
suited. But grow them in Cornwall and things might be rather different.
For example P. aurea is usually very well behaved in the average British
garden, but it is a rampant noxious weed that has taken over entire
hillsides in the Azores.

At least one seller in Britain markets S. fastuosa as an ideal hedging
bamboo precisely because it is a runner, and precisely because if you
contain it on two sides it tends to run off in a straight line in the
uncontained directions.

In botanic gardens, it is common for the bamboos to be well contained
with underground rhizome barriers. Perhaps this one has managed to
escape its containment.





I stand corrected, though many describe its habit as being clumping -
leading to my error.

I found an interesting e-book at
www.seedgarden.co.uk/ebooks/bambooebook.pdf

(Spurious apostrophe removed)

Many do so describe it. That's because they are selling it and know that many people won't buy it if described as a runner. So either they lie, or use some equivocation such as "mainly of clumping habit in British conditions".

The e-book isn't a bad thing to get for free from a seller, though clearly infomercial, and with the annoying incompletenesses, and collections of not-quite-useful information to pad it out. I notice at the start of the book the first "bamboo" they mention is "heavenly bamboo", which isn't bamboo at all. Also obviously aimed at the US market, as it mentions all sorts of stuff you can't grow here, and rips off a lot of info from the American Bamboo Society website.