Do you know this bambo?

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Do you know this bambo?

Post by needmore »

O.K., this is not a mite tutorial so ignore those, I obtained this plant as the proper form of F scabrida, clicking on the photos make them slightly larger. It looks very different from what we usually see for F scabrida with the long, slender, lance shape leaves. The leaves have nearly rounded tips, are slightly wider at the base giving an overall oval look. The culm sheathes are semi-persistent and cover 1/2 or so of the internode. The overall form is quite unusual and these photos do not quite capture it - the bigger plants I saw tended to twist at meander at the culm tips making the plant look like a very unusual shrub - I did not recognize it as bamboo upon first sight.

Every photo I've ever seen of F scabrida looks quite different from this so I'm not so much trying to find out if others think it is or is not F scabrida rather I'm curious if anyone knows a bamboo that looks like this?
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by Cooper12 »

interesting, id like to see what Chris Stapleton says. it most certainly looks nothing like mine or anything I have seen.
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by needmore »

I think it looks very much like this photo from Kimmei, he is calling it Yushania sp. Yunnan 5. Jos' description even says that is partially climbs which I was told about this F scabrida.
Yushania sp. yunnan 5.jpg
Yushania sp. yunnan 5.jpg (74.64 KiB) Viewed 9173 times
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by Chris S »

Seems you may have answered your own question Brad!
Carsten Bornemann has posted some good pictures of Yunnan 95/5 for comparison with your plant, at
http://www.bambuspflanze.de/Yushania/yunnan-95-5.htm

He has described it as "aussergewöhnlich", which is a great word, but can be positive or negative. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and everyone can make their own mind up as to whether this is an interesting and appealing bamboo, or just a scruffy eyesore.

The growth form with stubby leaves and strong tangled branches is a giveaway for Yushania. It suits these species well in the heavily browsed, quite open environments in which they grow, usually on flat and often boggy sites.

Get close up to the apex of the leaf sheath and the culm sheath, and Yunnan 5 will be seen to have well developed spreading auricles bearing prominent oral setae, which are common in many Yushania species, eg in Y. brevipaniculata.

Unfortunately this species, like several 'alpine' bamboos that have come out of Yunnan and Tibet in the last few decades, does not seem to match the descriptions of any published species very well... and we don't know exactly where any of the Yunnan 95 series were collected.
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by needmore »

Thank you Chris, I appreciate the information! Funny, the last photo on that page you linked has more typical longer lance shaped leaves like F scabrida!

I found the look of this one interesting enough to perhaps grow as a foundation shrub or against a fence. The larger ones in the link photos do suggest that some trimming may be in order to keep it from getting too scraggly. As an alpine bamboo it may despise my dozens of days in the +100 F range so I may not have it get too large!
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by Chris S »

agreed - the leaves in the last photo are also a different colour too...! 'Alpine' is used here as the Chinese use it, for all the pachymorph-rhizomed bamboos, very few of which actually come from alpine areas. The other Yunnan 95 bamboos, which are better known, are from species that have a relatively low elevation range, better suited to Zone 9 than 8. They were apparently collected by a group from Shanghai Botanic Garden, for selling to Holland, and they are from fairly low elevation, probably all close to the road, not higher up the mountains. Yunnan 5 therefore may be tolerant of reasonable heat.

But I am getting carried away here, as the ID of your bamboo is still uncertain! Can you take close-up shots of the top of the leaf sheath where the leaf blade starts? Your S5000 will even get to 1cm on its super macro setting at wide angle, so in theory it should be really great for close-ups. It just will need enough light from the sides to focus properly, without that big lens blocking out all the light.
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by Cooper12 »

Amazing info gentleman
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by needmore »

My camera fails miserably at macro setting due to operator error, I can not get the focus to hold but I'll surely give it a try it has been a huge frustration for me as after several years I can't get the macro focus to hold.
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by Alan_L »

Brad -- holding the shutter release halfway should "lock" the focus once you have it. If that's still not working, your camera has a manual focus mode, described on page 52 of the manual.

https://www.fujifilmusa.com/shared/bin/S5000Manual.pdf
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by Tarzanus »

Brad, sometimes it helps if someone can hold a newspaper or something just behind the detail of bamboo you want to take photo of. You can then set focus on the newspaper (and the object you are photographing), push the button 1/2 to lock it, then remove the newspaper and snap the photo. It's hard to do by yourself, but if you have someone that can assist you with the newspaper trick, you should be able to get clear photos even with a shitty camera.
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by Chris S »

Close up photography is always a challenge, even with fancy expensive kit. Compact cameras with small sensors can be very good, as they give greater depth of field, ie, more of the subject is in focus. Phone cameras can also be good, with patience.
It is important to have reasonable light, or else the camera can hunt forever for something contrasty enough to focus on. Sunshine is a wonderful thing. Moving the potted plant, or a branchlet taken from one that is in the ground, into the sunshine always helps a lot.
Using the macro setting on the camera tells it you want to focus close, which helps! Most cameras need to be at the wide-angle end of the zoom, not the telephoto end, in order to focus close.
Always use single AF, not continual AF, or else it often goes off focus again before the picture is actually taken.
Use single AF focus area, or Central as Fuji calls it, and this helps it to focus on the central object, not the background.
Get a non-contrasty background, such as shade.
If all fails, stick that newspaper (anyone still getting those?) or your hand behind it, then remove when it has focused. As someone on this forum eloquently put it, "Fool the goddam software!"
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by Chris S »

Here is a link to 5300 macro photos on Flickr taken by the S5000, demonstrating that it can take decent pictures close up.
https://www.flickr.com/search/?q=macro& ... epix_s5000

Do not believe what they tell you in the camera store about needing expensive cameras, special lenses, ring flash units, and tripods for close ups. Photography always has been more about technique than fancy equipment. Although introduced in 2003 and only 3Mp, Flickr still had 290 photos from the S5000 uploaded yesterday! It has been put to good use on 405 photos with the tag bamboo, including this one demonstrating why Bambusa bambos has thorns, and why we should not complain so much about our little bamboo pests.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/chandanb/4831337110/

#Iloveshittycameras
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by needmore »

Thanks for all the tips, I'll give it a try. I've tried the button half-down and that did not do it but will try again. I bought this camera as it was familiar body style and I had seen really nice photos taken with it. Maddening about the focus though, and thus far I have not found the right software to use with a modern O/S, I have to use my very old Mac to load the photos, anyone find updated software?
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by wind-borne »

As for where the thread is now.
When trying to get a detail, i look for an area nearby with similar light but a group of leaves, culms, etc. The camera will lock a close focus easier with a larger mass in the foreground and then move to chosen detail with focus already locked. That relieves the need for others, props or using one of your hands, just a little trial and error required.
Since you are not limited to the same extent as the rest of us maybe if you used 1500px for height and/or width size uploaded, when we clicked on photo would be somewhat zoomed already.
Chris S wrote:
we don't know exactly where any of the Yunnan 95 series were collected.
Back to the original topic at hand, Bamboo Garden leaves the impression that you collected Yunnan 95 5.
http://www.bamboogarden.com/Yushania%20 ... bing'.html

Brad, those 95 5 leaves at Bamboo Garden site look fairly pointed, but wondered if the very long dominant branch described resonated with your plants.
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Re: Do you know this bambo?

Post by needmore »

I think my plants are small enough that I can't see a particular pattern with the branches. What I did just notice was at some lower nodes there might be one very long branch that at first glance I thought was another culm. On nodes with multiple branches there was one longer branch but not unusually long.

These plants are bit beat up, very little soil and growing out of the pot, heavily visited by mites and then miticides.
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