Bambusa texilis 'Dwarf'

Comments and Sugestions for the ABS Source list.
Post Reply
User avatar
Roy
Posts: 3285
Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 3:15 pm
Location info: 6
Location: Tampa, Florida, USA,............Florida's SunCoast <Zone 9B-10A>

Bambusa texilis 'Dwarf'

Post by Roy »

I've been thinking that we should add Bambusa texilis 'Dwarf' to ABS Source List.

Rockledge Gardens in Florida has been promoting and selling this plant under the name of Bambusa texilis 'Dwarf' for a good number of years. If you do a Google search for "Bambusa texilis 'Dwarf'" you will get a number of hits of nurseries selling this plant.

I decided to try and track down the origins of this plant. I called Rockledge Gardens and talked with their plant curator Burney Pearson. Burney said that they got the plant as a seedling from Roy Works in 1993. They have a clump of it in the ground that they planted 10 years ago in 1997. He indicated the clump was about 15 to maybe 18 feet tall and about the max. culm diameter of about 1.25 inches. The clump is not as erect as a regular B. textilis, but more erect than a B. multiplex. This matches up with the picture below from Chuck Theroux's home--picture below.

Now to track down Roy Works, who left Tampa about 18 months ago to parts unknown. Well, after using some of my old tracking skills I learned working for a finance company about 40 years ago, I found Roy Works on a mountain top in North Carolina. Roy said that he had talked with no one about bamboo in the last 18 months, but that he did remember growing some Bamboo textilis seeds and did get some seedlings from them and did distribute them to various people. He thought that he had gotten the seeds from Kim Higbie, but that he hadn't thought about it in a long time and that he wasn't expecting anyone to ask him about it.

I phoned Kim Higbie in Hawaii and asked her about the B. textilis seeds. She said that it was a long time ago and she didn't remember anything about B. textilis seeds and giving them to Roy Works. She did remember collecting some B. textilis seedlings from the USDA (Chapman Field) around the late 1980's or about 1990. I can verify this part because I have one of those B. textilis seedlings (won in a raffle in Jan. 1990) and the plant looks like the mother plant (about 40 feet with almost 2 inch culm). She said Roy might have gotten some seedlings from her, but she doesn't remember any B. tex. seeds.

Next day I phoned Roy Works back and by this time he has had some time to think about it and said that he bought a Thyrsostachys siamensis from Kim Higbie and she also gave him 40 Bambusa textilis seeds in an envelope. Roy said that he really liked growing plants from seed and had been really successful in growing bamboo from seed. He got 30 of the 40 seeds to produce new seedlings.

If Kim Higbie didn't collect the seeds herself, but Roy remembers getting an envelope with supposed 40 B. textilis seeds, then perhaps someone else gave the seeds to Kim. The only one I can think of who traveled a lots and collected and distributed a lot of different types of bamboo seeds was Richard Waldron. And this is where the story ends.



Pictures of Bambusa texilis 'Dwarf' -->> http://tinyurl.com/2f6zar
Image
--------------------------
Roy Rogers
Southern Tampania de la Floridana Universidad (STFU)
STFU Motto: All Bamboos are not Created Equal; @ STFU, the Search Continues
**********
:wave: ROY'S BAMBOO LIST
User avatar
Roy
Posts: 3285
Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 3:15 pm
Location info: 6
Location: Tampa, Florida, USA,............Florida's SunCoast <Zone 9B-10A>

RE: Bambusa texilis 'Dwarf'

Post by Roy »

I talked with Chuck Theroux yesterday and asked him what he would put for the categories in the ABS Source List. Here's is answer:

Max Ht Ft: 18

Max Dia In: 3/4

Min Temp F: 18

Sun 5: Florida/4 , elsewhere/5


Chuck is one that is concerned that a 5 in New England is very different than a 5 in south Florida or south Texas. Bill says that he has been thinking about a system, but the sun issue is a hard one to resolve where the rating varies by area.

Chuck's Bambusa texilis 'Dwarf'
Image
--------------------------
Roy Rogers
Southern Tampania de la Floridana Universidad (STFU)
STFU Motto: All Bamboos are not Created Equal; @ STFU, the Search Continues
**********
:wave: ROY'S BAMBOO LIST
Post Reply