|
|
|
Japan had a wider range of truly hardy bamboos, but was reluctant to allow foreigners to explore or collect, and by the end of the 19th Century only a handful of species were in cultivation in Europe. Pseudosasa japonica had become quite common by then, and is now considered part of the naturalized flora of many countries, including the UK. By that time a few missionaries and plant collectors had also started to explore the vast range of Chinese bamboos, sending out seed of the first species to come from the mountains of W China, Fargesia nitida. The first decades of the 20th Century saw only a slight increase in collecting in China, but on the other hand most of the more attractive species and cultivars from Japan had soon been added to western gardens. China was to close itself off from the west, but not before an American missionary, F. A. McClure, had studied and collected many tropical species from S China, which were then grown in the S USA, mainly Georgia. Introductions of bamboos were to slow down for several decades after that, not only because little exploration was possible, but also because Japanese gardening suddenly went out of fashion after Pearl Harbor. The last 3 decades of the 20th Century saw a revived interest in Oriental gardening. The slow opening of China, Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet, and maybe also some positive experiences from Vietnam, brought increased interest in the studying and collecting of bamboos. The neglected bamboo collection at Kew was bulldozed in 1981 to replant the interwoven tangle of species, and new bamboo collections were started all around the world. While collecting plants had previously been undertaken without any consideration of national ownership of genetic material, with food crops such as rice from Asia, potato tomato and maize plants from S American, fruits from Europe etc being freely shared and widely exploited all around the world, the Convention on Biological Diversity came into force in the 1990s (implemented at Kew from Jan 1st 1996). Under this initiative, the subtext was meant to be that foreigners would only collect plants in another country with prior informed consent. In return all countries would take better steps to conserve their own biodiversity for future generations. Hopefully this will lead to better bamboo conservation at some point in time. Meanwhile, however it has led to the collection of new bamboos becoming more clandestine. This makes information on real sources of new introductions much harder to find, which consequently makes identification and taxonomy much more difficult. This in turn makes it harder still to conserve plants in their natural environment, as conservation is impossible without good knowledge of the species and their distribution. Getting this initiative back on track will require some confidence building. Nepal has been the source of two hardy species so far, Thamnocalamus crassinodus and Borinda emeryi, and several less hardy, although still suitable for milder regions, such as Himalayacalamus asper and H. porcatus. These were introduced by Merlyn Edwards in the 1970s and 1980s. Eastern China was meanwhile visited by Peter Addington and others, who brought back many new introductions. Those of Peter Addington, which included several new Phyllostachys species and cultivars, as well as the famous walking stick bamboo, Chimonobambusa tumidissinoda, were planted in his famous Stream Cottage garden in W Sussex, an area that probably has the best climate for many bamboos in the UK as demonstrated by Peter Addington in Pulborough and Tony Pike in Leigh. The combination of high summer temperatures with reasonable rainfall and good soils, often with ground water as well, is appreciated by many bamboos, especially species of Phyllostachys, which struggle elsewhere in the UK. Kew Gardens has unfavourable growing conditions with light soils, low rainfall, and pollution, as well as high numbers of grey squirrels, which consume the vast majority of new bamboo shoots nearly every year. Therefore bamboos that can thrive and attain substantial statures in W Sussex are only about half the size and look rather miserable at Kew, and the performance of new introductions at Kew should not be taken as indicative of their real potential. Exploration of W China and Tibet has been the key to discovery of a very substantial stock of interesting, hardy bamboos. The western Provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan, along with the Tibet Autonomous Region, hold not only a wealth of hardy Fargesia species, but also a very large genus, not discovered until 1994, Borinda, which has already yielded several large, dramatic clump-forming bamboos. Noticed in Bhutan in the 1980s, and first introduced from W Yunnan in the 1990s through the Kunming Institute of Botany and South-West Forestry College, these vigourous, elegant, large but non-spreading bamboos have great potential for temperate horticulture. Many more have also been introduced privately from Tibet by Keith Rushforth in recent years. Borinda papyrifera from Yunnan attains 8m in height in temperate climates. Borinda grossa from Bhutan & Tibet can attain even greater size, possibly to 14m, and in a compact clump without the need for rhizome barriers. For warmer, subtropical or tropical gardens of the USA and Australia, the islands of Indonesia have provided many new bamboos, particularly Gigantochloa species, often with coloured culms, while from Thailand & Malaysia the elegant monastery bamboo, Thyrsostachys siamensis, and the yellow-culmed cultivar of Schizostachyum brachycladum are very worthwhile additions. Interest has also grown in C & S American species, and several have been introduced to the US, including the weeping Otatea acuminata from Mexico, which could have great potential in drier S Europe, but no S American bamboos so far have proven as hardy as Chusquea culeou from Argentina and Chile. Notes* Links to Google Earth placemarks require the free Google Earth program and a broadband/cable connection as well as a modern processor. See free download site. For links to function properly, it may also be necessary to register the file extension kmz to be opened by Google Earth (in Windows use Windows Explorer - Tools - Folder Options). Google Earth links are not automatically recognized by MS Internet Explorer, which wants to rewrite the extension as .zip instead. I think I have solved the problem on this server, but if they are still opened as zip files, use another browser, or save the files with the extension .kmz and then open them.
Other introductions will be added, including those from Langtang and W Nepal by Merlyn Edwards and from SE Tibet and elsewhere by Keith Rushforth as the species are described Emei Shan source of Chimonobambusa szechuanensis, Sarocalamus fangianus KR 0134 in 1980 - good artistic photos of habitat, but only of large bamboos at base of the mountain 1 2
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
cultivated in western gardens
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
