Just HOW rare is this? I had seen a variety of sites where people had
pictures of it in their bamboo gardens, but can not find it for sale
anywhere.

It is very rare. The last one to sell that I know of sold for $7000 at the
ABS auction several years ago. Three years after planting it still had no
new shoots.

Tortoise shell moso is not a true sport but a mutation of regular moso and
according to McClure when planted will usually revert to the normal form.
There have been attempts in China to remove all culms except those that have
mutated to tortoise shell to try to get a true clone but to my knowldege
there has been no success.

Bert

"bambooooga" wrote in message
...
Just HOW rare is this? I had seen a variety of sites where people had
pictures of it in their bamboo gardens, but can not find it for sale
anywhere.

Hmm. You know, I am betting that a lot of the sites that have what
the owners THINK is tortoise shell moso is actually golden bamboo, as
I am seeing it called that on eBay and on web sites fairly often.