New Bamboo Found in Appalachia
Posted by: Loren Coleman on March 22nd, 2007
Hill Cane, Iowa State University photo
We tend to think that we … know our own biodiversity, and that there isn’t much left to discover in a place like the United States. I think this demonstrates that that’s not true.Lynn Clark, professor of ecology, evolution and organismal biology, Iowa State University
Surprise, surprise! Two known species of North American bamboo discovered 200 years ago have been joined by a brand new one just found in the last year. The “hill cane” was discovered in the Appalachian Mountains. This new species of bamboo (Arundinaria appalachiana) grows only to about 6 feet, compared with the other North American species - river cane and switch cane - which each can grow much taller and thicker. It is the only species of the three that drops its leaves. Locals knew about it but had not recognized it as anything so new or special.
River Cane, Duke University photo
Professor Clark, along with doctoral student Jimmy Triplett first heard about what might be a different type of bamboo from University of North Carolina botanist Alan Weakley. They decided to take a ride into the Appalachians to figure out if there was anything to the stories.
We drove up, we got out of the car, we looked at it and went, “Ah, it’s different. This one doesn’t have a name.”…It’s overall kind of a smaller plant … and more delicate….These are difficult plants to work with, so a lot of people…don’t pay much attention. When you do look at them, there is this incredible diversity.” “Lynn Clark
Dr. Clark is an international bamboo expert who has discovered 74 other new species, mostly throughout Central and South America.
According to the Associated Press, Clark, Triplett and Weakley recently completed the process of officially naming and describing the newfound bamboo species, including preparing Latin and English descriptions as well as drawings. Their work appeared last fall in the journal Sida, Contributions to Botany.
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- Similar Phenomena:
“Locals knew about it but had not recognized it as anything so new or special.”
Why does this not surprise me in the least?
This same sort of local attitude is quite prevalent with other cryptozoological or cryptobotanical lifeforms reported around the world.
This may not be the same thing that’s being talked about here.
But native reports of the orang pendek of Sumatra are remarkably consistent. Natives seem genuinely perplexed that Westerners don’t believe it exists. They don’t have any of what we tend to dismiss as legends about it; they simply regard it as part of the local fauna. They’re emphatic that they don’t consider it human, or posessed of special powers, or anything like that; it’s just another animal.
The Sherpa of Nepal seem to believe the same thing about the yeti. I remember reading once a long time back about a Sherpa being asked to list the local fauna, his response being something like: let’s see, snow leopard, blue sheep, goral….um, red panda, yeti, wild boar, maybe some wolves, a few bears…
I can’t believe that I have never, in all the time I have been outside, ever seen a plant or an insect that was unknown to science at the time I saw it. It MUST have happened sometime.
What impresses me sometimes almost as much as what scientists know are scientists’ blind spots. Locals usually don’t have that problem.
The locals would have no use for this plant and would have considered it a weed, if it could not be used as a medicine or eaten. They are very practical people.
There are a lot of plants in the Appalachians that are unique and occur nowhere else, but which have relatives in the Himalayas and in some other isolated regions of southeast Asia. For instance there are some kinds of trilliums, shrubs and native orchids here, the closest relatives of which grow in Japan.
Most of the people who have lived here all their lives don’t realize what a wonderfully diverse environment surrounds them. My great-grandfather was a medicine man, a “hill doctor”. He could take two seemingly identical plants and point out differences in their structure and use, and he successfully treated people for many illnesses, using only the plants that grow in the mountains. According to my grandmother he always said that no plant is without its use and all are living treasure. I am fortunate in having grown up in a family who has always treasured the native Appalachian plants.
Sadly, many of these plants are now endangered. There is a big market for Ginseng and Goldenseal, and a lot of people will destroy plants in their efforts to harvest them for money. Also the mining and timber industries destroy native plants, either directly or by polluting the surrounding habitat so that the plants cannot survive. A hideous practice called “mountaintop removal”, which in reality is total habitat destruction, is wiping out entire ecosystems that have been existing for millions of years. You can go here to Appalachian Voices to see what mountaintop removal strip mining is doing to our country.
Arctodus- I agree, it isn’t suprising at all. A lot of plants and animals are ethnoknown before being officially documented by science. A lot of times, like with the Laotian rock rat for example, the animal was quite openly known by people before being “discovered”. I find this fascinating, to think about all the biodiversity that could be out there that is totally mundane for the local populace, yet unknown to science.
Kittenz- There is also a practice known as “bioprospecting” which is basically the wholesale search for pants or animals that will be able to be exploited for medicinal qualities. Some big companies are actively involved in researching traditional plants for the purpose of mass producing them for profit.