[Coral-List] Bamboo

[Eugene Shinn]

Bamboo, Another hot button! Has anyone considered how many plants we 
take for granted are actually exotics? What are considered  exotics 
are often  those plants that got here before we were born. I love my 
Key Limes (an exotic Dr. Perine imported from Mexico). And what would 
south Florida be  with out coconut trees? Since the subject of bamboo 
came up I suggest that coral listers investigate Bamboo as I did a 
few years ago. You can find it all on the inter-net. First thing I 
learned was that there is one worldwide species that dies off at the 
same time every 125 years. The Pandas in China suffer because it is 
their principal diet. The Chinese have observed it for a few thousand 
years. Another species dies off about every 75 years. At the same 
time it is dying in the far east it is dying everywhere in the Amazon 
basin! How can that be? Its part of their flowering cycle. Another 
species,  recently covered on a NOVA series TV program, flowers every 
40 years. When it flowers it produces nut like fruit that feed wild 
rats. The rats breed so fast that they devour rice crops in parts of 
northern India leading to famine.  It all a natural cycle!  Lets see 
now..The Acroporas began dying all over the Caribbean in the late 
1970s  peaking in 1983 and 1984. umm. Gene
-- 


No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
University of South Florida
Marine Science Center (room 204)
140 Seventh Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
<eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
Tel 727 553-1158---------------------------------- 
-----------------------------------