New bamboo named in Southern Appalachians

Hill Cane, Arundinaria appalachiana

Two Iowa State University botanists and their colleague at the University of North Carolina have discovered a new species of North American bamboo in the hills of Appalachia. Arundinaria appalachiana is the third known North American native species of the hardy grass. The other two were discovered more than 200 years ago.

Lynn Clark and Jimmy Triplett of ISU study bamboo diversity and evolution. They first heard about "hill cane" from University of North Carolina botanist Alan Weakley. As soon as they saw it, they knew it was different.

Hill cane differs from the other two native North American bamboo species -- commonly known as switch cane and river cane -- in an important way: It drops its leaves in the fall. The other two bamboos, A. gigantea, which typically grows along streams, and A. tecta, which is found in swamps and other very wet areas, grow quite tall. Hill Cane, on the other hand, grows only one to three feet tall and is found on upland slopes in dry to mesic sites in oak-hickory forests.

"That's why it was recognized locally as being different," Clark said. "It's pretty uncommon for bamboos to drop their leaves."

Clark should know. She's an internationally recognized bamboo expert. She has previously discovered 74 new species of bamboo.

"All the other new ones came from Central and South America," she said. "It's so exciting to find a new species in our own backyard!"

They already know that the closest relatives of native North American bamboos are not in Central or South America, but are in East Asia.

"That's a well-known pattern of diversity in plants and animals. Plants known to be closely related that were previously found across a large area of the earth are only in those two areas now. For various reasons, the Eastern U.S. and East Asia are a repository for a lot of diversity," Clark said.

"But we still don't understand exactly how long it has been since our bamboos separated from their Asiatic cousins. And we don't know how we ended up with three species in North America and 500 in East Asia," she said.

One patch of Arundinaria appalachiana is growing near the Southern Highlands Reserve and has been tagged with a ‘do not disturb’ note.