I always look up the species in which im trying to grow, IMO its just the smart thing to do. THe internet can be a bit confusing to get info out of, especially when it comes to this topic. I personally only trust a few small group of sites when it comes to botanical information. For this case, I only trust the bamboo society pages, universities, and curater of national/large botanical gardens.
To make a long story short, I ordered seeds labeded "Fargesia Spathacea". Im wondering if anyone here can actually corrobarate some information for me . This is what I can gather. There was a species of dried bamboo flower, sent to the UK, by Fargas. He named this Fargesia spathacea.
Then Wilson discovered his specimin 15 years laterThe taxonomic treatment of Muriel’s bamboo
"...... the French missionary PèreFarges had made a dried collection of a bamboo in flower, not in Hupeh Province, but inneighbouring Sichuan. Because of its distinctive one-sided racemes enclosed in spathes, it wasdescribed as a new genus, Fargesia, by the French taxonomist Franchet (1893) The species name given was spathacea. Plants from Sichuan were almost certainly not brought back for cultivation."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/44892549/Muri ... n-s-Bamboo
There is also this"Muriel’s bamboo was collected in Hupeh province of China, almost certainly as a cutting, in May 1907. The famous British plant collector Ernest H. Wilson, who brought us somany of our garden plants, was on his third plant collecting expedition in China, this timeworking for the Arnold Arboretum, which required scientific herbarium collections as well as live plants. "
**same source as above
So apparently, F Murielae (sorry if I keep spelling that wrong), and F nitida were thought similar to each other, as well as synonyms for F spathacea. They were also thrown around sinarundinaria, Yunshina, and a few other bamboo genus."Careful study
has also helped identify morphological characteristics of reproductive
structures to differentiate F. murielae and F. nitida, and to determine
their affinities with F. spathacea Franchet, a third morphologically-similar
species with taxonomy that is equally problematic" (Stapleton, 1995a, b,
1996)"
http://www.davidsonia.org/files/fargesia.pdf
Since there have been a few species that have flowerd, it is supposedly getting easier to properly name the FArgesia genus.
So, I finally thought I figured it out. The "Fargesia spathacea" seeds I bought, are more then likely F Nitida. Then I read this yesterday:"The flowers of spathacea differed from those of murieliae mainly
in having fewer sheaths subtending the spikelets and ciliate spathes. So what of the flowers
of these plants that I am now satisfied are indeed F. nitida? No prizes for guessing – they
have very few sheaths subtending the spikelets and prominently ciliate spathes. Looking at
the lemmas they are also less scabrous than those of F. murieliea and the stamens have small
points at the apices, although they are not as markedly pointed at the base. Another
characteristic of the spathacea collection was the solid branchlets. These are not quite solid in
nitida, but they are nearly solid, and definitely thicker-walled than similarly-sized branchlets
in murieliae."
http://members.chello.nl/~p.meeuws/bb/a ... stap01.pdf
So, is F spathacea, now known as F. robusa? I cant find any information saying whether or not this is true. The quote before last name more sence to me. Since, I have not heard back from the sellar (got em off of ebay from a sellar in china, and we all know how "reliable" ebay sellars can be with plant seeds"Veblen et al. [32] estimated the biomass and pro-ductivity of a stand of montane Chusquea culeouin Chile (latitude 39:5◦S, elevation 700m, annualrainfall 4000mm). ANPP was 10–11tha year ,and above-ground biomass about 160tha , with a maximum stand height of about 9m. Lower pro-ductivities and biomass are reported for montaneforest understorey bamboos in central China (approx.32 N) by Taylor and Qin [33]. Here, the most pro-ductive species, Fargesia spathacea (now renamed F. robusta), growing at 2500–3000m elevation withannual rainfall of 1200mm, had ANPP of about3:6tha−1 year 1(or 4:5tha 1year−1, correctedfor grazing losses to giant pandas). Above-ground biomass was nearly 24tha−1, with maximum standheight about 2.5–3.0m"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/43364360/Bamb ... s-Resource
) I dont know if the plant is for sure spathacea, therefore "nitida", or even "robusta". Does anyone have any idea, or can at least point me in the right direction?