Bamboos are the fastest-growing plants on Earth.
A typical bamboo grows as much as 10 centimeter in a single day.
Certain species grow up to a meter during the same period, or about 1 millimeter every 2 minutes.
it’s possible for you to actually see the plant grow in front of your eyes.
Most species of bamboo reach maturity in just 5 to 8 years.
Compare this to other popular hard woods that barely grow an inch in a week.
Trees such as oak, can take up to 120 years to reach maturity.
But when it comes to flowering, bamboos are probably one of the slowest plants in the world.
Most bamboos flower once every 60 to 130 years.
The long flowering intervals remain largely a mystery to many botanists.
Most bamboos are exactly that they are division taken from the same mother plant at some point.
These divisions were re-divided over time and shared across the world.
Although the divisions are now geographically in different locations, they still carry the same genetic makeup.
This mass flowering phenomenon is called gregarious flowering.
According to one hypothesis, mass flowering increases the survival rate of the bamboo population.
Another theory suggests that the mother plant dies to make room for the bamboo seedlings.
The mass flowering events also attract predators, mainly rodents.
After they devour the bamboo fruit, the rats start consuming crops both stored as well as on fields.
A bamboo flowering event is almost always followed by famine and disease in nearby villages.
