Jeff,
PM resent, If you don't get it, try my email.
We probably need to get together for some trading sometime. Have you ever been to the bamboo festival at the arboretum in Asheville, mid summer?

Let us know what you find out and be sure to take a camera.
Matt

When I got to the details of your PM, I remembered that I had visited this site before.

I was fuzzy on the details, so I looked through my old posts and found this:

http://www.bambooweb.info/bb/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=3389

I remember it being incredibly hot when I brought the bamboo home. And then I apparantly came down with the flu. Anyway, it turned out that everything died. I had planned to get back for an early spring dig, but that never happened.

Don't really have bamboo to trade currently. I've got poor soil and more shade than ideal. And I don't baby my plants.
I'm bad.

Haven't made it to the festival yet, but maybe this year.

Jeff,
I'm sitting here smiling. You had almost the same experience as me. Looks like about a year earlier. We learn as we go. I will make every effort to get back there and take photos. I think my Ipod has an app for measuring height, If I can learn how to work it, I'll get a more accurate estimate on the height. I'm pretty sure she told me they had measured a down culm at 50'. It really is an impressive grove to me.

Matt

I agree Matt. It is an impressive grove for sure.
There aren't that many 50 footers. It would be good to have confirmation of that height. And to know exactly what this beauty is.

I made it over to Asheville today and took lots of photos of the parent grove. Here are a few and there are over 60 more here http://mattsbamboo.shutterfly.com/315










Matt

There are not that many species of phyllostachys bamboos that typically get up to 50ft + so have you ever considered phyllostachys bambusoides?

Based on the spacing of the grove, and the height/diameter, it certainly looks like a timber bamboo.

_________________
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31489820@N02/

http://stevespeonygarden.blogspot.com/

Nice pictures. US dollars are 2.75 inches wide(I just measured), so that's pretty good. Hope my alleged dulcis gets that big.

Matt, that's a great set of pictures! Maybe we can finally get an id on this bamboo. I would love to know what it is.

Thanks for the continuing interest all. I just checked the new USDA plant zone hardiness map, Asheville NC is in 7A.

Steve, Maybe someone who is growing Phyllostachys bambusoides will take a look at the photos and confirm or deny. I agree that there aren't many capable of this height in this climate zone. I can't swear to the 50'. I couldn't get far enough away to work with the Ipod app. Not sure it would be all that accurate anyway, but being in the patch today it seems about right.

This bamboo was on the property when the current resident acquired the property 12 years ago. When she got the property the grove was more extensive. She hired a machine to remove a lot of it, so it is an older patch. She believes it to be dulcis. She says it exceeds the maximum height due to very good soil. I don't think she fertilizes at all. Another tidbit I picked up today was that the previous owner had bought Pleioblastus viridistriatus from the Biltmore estate. So it's possible this one originally came from Biltmore. Anyone know what species are grown on the Biltmore estate?

BTW that isn't me in the photos, it's the owner's son.

Matt

I can see why you suspect dulcis looking at the shoots, the funny thing is that the culms don't look so much like it but that could be environmental. Dulcis from a distance should look different from most Phy's - short branches and long leaves, a little bottle brush-like. Also, some of the bigger culms would likely have faint striping on the lower culms, usually cream or yellowish. Do any of your other photos show the grove a bit back from it? Do you see any striping?

I've seen dulcis over 3" in TN, close to 3.5" so the size is in the range.

_________________
Brad Salmon, zone 5b/6 Southern Indiana
Winters -20 to -25C. Summers 30 to 35C , humid. 115 cm annual precipitation, frost free from May through early October. 259.3 meters elevation. Growing 150+ species. http://www.needmorebamboo.com/

Brad, This is about the best far away photo. It's a smaller property with a lot going on, so hard to get distant photos. Plus trees mixed in the grove which kinda break the overall look. I didn't notice any striping. My inexperienced eye sees nothing remarkable except size. It just seems pretty generic to me. Green, straight, and tall, no stripes, no crooks and no spots. The cut and broken pieces seemed pretty thin walled up in the culms but there are a couple of shots of stump cuts that look plenty thick to me, but I haven't seen much cut bamboo especially big stuff.


Matt

I still like dulcis, the culms in the center top look to have long leaves and short branches wouldn't you say?

_________________
Brad Salmon, zone 5b/6 Southern Indiana
Winters -20 to -25C. Summers 30 to 35C , humid. 115 cm annual precipitation, frost free from May through early October. 259.3 meters elevation. Growing 150+ species. http://www.needmorebamboo.com/

In this photo, just to the left of center, one I think shows the bottle brush, short branch look you are talking about. It's a darker green so I don't know if it is mature culm or a shoot that hasn't finished yet. What about the sheath blades being straight or barely crinkled?


Matt

The blades should be krinkled but at some point they stretch out after the shoot is up a bit.

Do you think there could be 2 species? Those culms sure look like henon but the shoots I can see are not henon.

_________________
Brad Salmon, zone 5b/6 Southern Indiana
Winters -20 to -25C. Summers 30 to 35C , humid. 115 cm annual precipitation, frost free from May through early October. 259.3 meters elevation. Growing 150+ species. http://www.needmorebamboo.com/

There are a lot of big gray culms that seem to be from previous years. But I don't think there are more than one species. I have a known Henon here and I didn't see any shoots that looked similar, although mine is only on the third shooting season this spring.

Been trying to find online a list of species at Biltmore without much luck. Did find in Farming Bamboo a mention of edulis being brought to Biltmore in 1890. I've never seen moso, but understand the culms are fuzzy. I saw no obvious fuzz on the culms in Asheville. The culm sheaths are covered with fine hair on my juvenile division. I think the leaves may be too big for edulis as well. But the shoots do look a lot like the images I can find of moso shoots.


Matt